What Does a Mark Mason Do on His Days off       or…. 
How a Day Started Bad and Just Got Worse !!
Saturday 11th May 2013
 
Up early 6am, boiled egg 1 dry toast (on a diet), got everything together, scarf, hat, warm jacket all complete with my team logo, small bag with a couple of Urmston butties in (Marmite), an apple, a small bottle of Dandelion and Burdock. (sounds like a feast) an i Pod, Settlers, plasters, money and most important of all my ticket. Now all I had to do was wait for my lift to get to the Shepherds Call in Hyde where hopefully a bus should arrive to transport everyone to Wembley..
 
Entered pub lovely smell of Bacon, Eggs and Toast, it was a case of eat as much as you like, I was tempted and have to admit I did butter one round and stick three rashers of bacon on it, delicious.
Plenty already gathered having a few pints, playing pool; after all it was 8am by now.!!
Something however was not as usual on these occasions, there was a strange atmosphere spreading throughout the fans, a deep depression was setting in, someone had definite inside news that Mancini was finished, we were not happy.!!
 
Anyway in due time the bus was boarded, along with refreshment and we set off, decent coach with a toilet at the back, leather seats (which had seen better days) my mate and I were at the front where the two seats had a definite slant forwards, in other words you felt that you were going to slide off the seat at any minute !!
 
Someone came up from the back to ask for a CD to be played and guess what the driver could only speak broken English, oh oh.   Somewhere past I think Rugby we pulled on to the motorway services and before you could blink the driver had disappeared and a new chap appeared as if by magic called George.
 
We all piled into the food/toilet area where you always get those looks whether your 16 or 60 years old of “Oh no football hooligans” from all the staff, queued for about 10 minutes for the toilet, then another 10 minutes for the pleasure of paying £3.80 for something which was supposed to be coffee, all that can be said about it was, the colour resembled coffee.
Austin with a Wigan Fan, prior to the match
  
All aboard, off we set again with our new driver George, the traffic was reasonable and there was no rain as yet, you could tell we were getting close to Wembley when all the houses started to look run down and semi derelict, if you’ve had the pleasure yourself of going to the National Stadium you’ll know what I mean. Now the fun begins on being directed by a brigade of yellow coats we finally entered a coach car park only to find it was for Wigan busses, oops. Some 20 minutes later and after turning the bus round on three occasions in single lane roads we entered another coach park, success; it was the Man City coach park. We were stuffed in a corner and the thought quickly came over me that we would be one of the last out !! (This proved correct)
 
Austin with Wembley Arch in the background
 
 
We all disembarked and headed towards the Wembley Arch, in no time at all we spotted a large hotel, painted sky blue which seemed to be full of City supporters, perfect, in we went and surprisingly it wasn’t as full as is usual, you know what I mean when it’s that packed that you can’t get your hands out of your pockets.
 
Soon found out why, half a pint £3.90, a bottle £4.20 and if you wanted a pint of Cider I think you had to give them your credit card!! Ah well I said just get a pint and four straws as it is nice and warm in here and the Villa vs Chelsea game was on a wide screen TV. Four pints later nobody seemed to care anymore we were even having photo’s taken with a couple of Wigan supporters, a bit like the Mark Degree really, City supporters are very friendly.   
 
The Cap To Every Man a Penny.
 
 
Now it was time to go out into the pouring rain coming down in sheets and work our way through the building site which is all around the stadium, this isn’t something new it’s been like this since it opened, any decent openings for large amounts of people to pass through are blocked by burger stands and once up close the crowds are squeezed again by huge concrete structures which seem to be some kind of ventilation towers. I can only think that whoever designed the new Wembley must have thought it looked good on paper but didn’t have a clue (or care) about crowd movement around it. Once we finally got through the turnstiles up we went on the escalator, and up and up to an open area packed out with fans queuing for £5 pies, drinks and £10 programmes. Still there was this downbeat feeling coming from most of the fans.
 
Made our way to our seats, good view, flags on every seat just right for getting poked in the eye, still the thought was there. The centre tier as usual which are the best seats in the stadium were full on non supporters as can be seen by the lack of colours, they are Wembley Club ticket holders seats, the ones who are still in the bar 20 minutes after the second half kicks off and generally don’t even have a clue who is playing !!
The Ticket
The teams line up
 
Ah well as to the game itself it was a non entity, Manchester City just didn’t turn up, whatever was going on internally within the club had obviously spilled out on to the pitch, we have not seen such a performance for over three years, lets face it they were just not interested, which really was a shame for all the fans who had made the trip at a cost of well over £150 each. Just to rub it in the best player on the day Tevez was substituted!! Well done Wigan it’s just a shame you had no opposition to play against.       The best was yet to come.!!
 
Quick as we could everyone emptied out into the pouring rain and the squash zones outside, found our way to the coach car park entrance which had now been blocked by two burger stands, I kid you not, approx 64 coaches were jammed in there and the access was now only two persons at a time and even then you had to be careful not to fall over the towing hooks. You have to wonder what the Germans will make of it all when they attend for the Champions League Cup Final.
 
What relief to get back on to my slippy/slidy leather seat, little did I know then that I would be sat on it for a long, long time. The coach eventually made the car park exit at 7.50pm and by 9pm we had travelled approx half a mile, this was fun, at 11pm we were sat in a 10 mile tail back where they had closed the motorway down to one lane, on getting to the end of the jam there was one vehicle and five men painting white lines, this on a day when all the traffic from Wembley was heading North.
 
George was now beginning to panic as could be heard by the phone call he was having, his time was running out. At about 11.50pm we pulled into the services and as you can imagine people were now getting slightly hungry, all the usual were there Burger King, Kentucky Fried etc, but would you believe it, as we queued a few got served but then it was lights out and closed!! I was one of the lucky ones (or was I) to get a small burger, I opened it up and can I say it was embarrassing, it looked like it had stood there all day, just think what you get in America and there was no comparison. Everyone began to share whatever they had, an odd apple here, half a Penguin there, 7 Smarties and 4 Jelly babies (a feast).      It wasn’t over yet.
 
Back to the coach, George is now on the phone again, “I need another driver” he cried “I’ve used all my time up”, and to add insult to injury the toilet door wouldn’t open, now if everyone hadn’t been so fed up and tired there could have been a bus take over, but being well mannered Manchester City supporters everyone said “poor chap, you must be exhausted” well that’s not an exact translation as you can imagine.
 
Off we set eventually to stop yet again near Knutsford where we had to wait for another 30 minutes whilst yet another driver turned up, I arrived back in Urmston at 3.55am Sunday morning!!   London to Urmston approx 8 hours 15 minutes, could have flown to Florida and found the hire car in the car park in that time!! 
 

To Cap It All my Team Didn’t Turn Up, Mancini was gone, Zabaleta sent off, we lost but you know what nobody seemed to care and my programme is still in its bag, never been opened, same again next year??.  

 
Austin N.Fletcher. PPrAGDC.
Flixton Shepherd Eastwood Lodge. No.1173.    MARK WELL