Match: v Exeter City - Blue Square Premier Play-Off Final at Wembley Stadium

Date: Sunday, May 18th, 2008

Result: Exeter City 1 Cambridge United 0

Before The Match

Irrespective of the result, a trip to watch Cambridge United play at Wembley Stadium is always going to be a special occasion. The size of the venue and the number of United fans travelling means that everyone will have their own personal view of the day. Here's mine:

With the other members of the usual Travellers' Tales team all travelling separately as they needed, or wanted, to arrive at the Stadium at different times, I joined part of the BBC Radio Cambridgeshire team, chauffeured by our estimable match summariser, Steve Line. The distinctive arch and the saddleback-shaped stadium is visible long before you get to the ground, so there was a palpable frisson of excitement even amongst the seasoned professionals in the Lino-mobile as we got closer to Wembley.

The station was broadcasting from outside the ground from lunchtime, so our first destination was a hotel in the shadow of the stadium where some very clever technical stuff was being set up. Being so close to the stadium, the hotel seemed to be very popular with football fans. When we arrived, Portsmouth and Cardiff supporters were starting to check out after the FA Cup Final the previous day, while there were a few Exeter fans brunching in the bar.

Once the first broadcast of the day was safely underway, it was barely a five-minute walk to the stadium for the sports team, a walk that took us alongside a concrete wasteland of work in progress between the hotel and the ground.

At The Ground

While it may have only been a five-minute walk to get to the stadium, getting in was another matter. The turnstiles in the polished-steel and concrete exterior were accessed via a wide, raised concourse with signs pointing to the various groups of entrances. Although we had instructions as to where to collect media passes, these instructions weren't quite so clear in telling us that we needed not to be on the boulevard-style concourse but, instead, on the rough-hewn concrete paths that ran below. Surprisingly, not one of the Wembley staff on the concourse knew this!

Half an hour later, we found the vast glass-fronted areas on which the sun never shone. Behind these were large, separate reception areas for Wembley Staff, Club Officials, Photographers and, finally, Media where we were met by the friendly face of regular Travellers' Tale-r David Gray who was in charge of the media accreditation desk.

The glass frontage gave the area the air of an airport terminal, an impression that had been presaged by the requirement to supply passport details when applying for press tickets. The theme was continued with airport style security as all bags were searched and all the press checked with an electric scanner before being allowed to move further into the stadium. After all that security it felt as though I was about to board a transatlantic flight, with the only clue to the contrary being that I didn't have to remove my shoes as I passed through the checks.

A lift (or had we crossed the Atlantic and it was an elevator?) and a maze of corridors led to a vast press lounge where tea, coffee and sandwiches were available for anyone not too nervous to eat. Being the Press, you may not be surprised to learn that no one fell into this category! A panoramic window at the front of this area gave us the first view of the business end of the stadium. While we munched, we were entertained by a string of test safety messages that began by sending the Stadium Manager from pillar to post and ended with "due to circumstances beyond our control, today's match can no longer go ahead. Please leave by the nearest exit." The entertainment ended there though, as no one seemed to have wandered in without hearing the 'test message' preface!

The pitch was surrounded by a sea of red seats in three tiers, the upper of which was not open on the day of our visit. Below this upper level, a curve of glass suggested suite after suite of corporate areas sitting above the middle tier that was noticeably narrower that the others. Both ends of the ground were dominated by giant screens - each, according to the programme, the size of 600 domestic televisions - that showed action during the match, interspersed with pictures of fans.

If the press lounge was good, the press box was out of this world. A slight contrast from the cramped conditions at Burton or the lack of work bench at the Abbey, this wasn't just a level above what I've been used to, it was so many levels above it and halfway through the stratosphere. Only one of the two press areas was open, but that was sufficient as it contained six rows of thirty-eight seats each behind a wide bench, each with its own computer network cable and each with a cleverly designed padded seat that was pivoted to move just as you wanted. And if that wasn't enough, each work position had its own mini-monitor, which showed Setanta's coverage of the match - albeit filmed from the other side of the pitch, which made it a little confusing until you got used to it. It was almost as if the powers that be had asked the press what they wanted when they built the stadium, rather than just assumed (or didn't care) as you suspect is the case virtually everywhere else.

While the press box was perfect, other aspects of the broadcasting day were less so. In the short window between the Play-Off Semi-Final and Final, Tom Williams - who must have the patience of Job - painstakingly arranged passes for access to the areas we needed. One of these was pitch side and all seemed to have been approved - so that was all right then. Well, actually it wasn't - pitch side access was not permitted and although Nick Fairbairn did have the OK to leave the press area to garner interviews during the match, the stewards interpreted them as permission to carry the microphone, but not to use it! Putting the 'off' into officious, they also refused permission to go anywhere near the pitch after the match 'for our own safety' - quite possibly our safety from harm by the pitch side stewards. Anyway, back to on-pitch matters.

Four, large black boxes were aligned along the side of the pitch before the match. I assumed they were giant tannoy speakers, as that's exactly what they looked like, so I was a little surprised when giant flames shot from the top of them when the teams emerged from the tunnel. They were on the same side of the pitch as the press boxes, and I could feel the heat from the flames from my seat at the back of the lower tier. Augmented by a fusillade of fireworks, it was an impressive entrance that became spine tingling as the teams lined-up for the National Anthem.

The press area in use for this match was in the end of the stadium allocated to Exeter fans and, to give them credit, they made as much noise as the Amber Nation throughout the game and, understandably, more towards the end. They didn't bounce as impressively though.

Programme: £5 for 60 A4 pages. Beautifully designed and set out, with plenty to read, this was every inch a big-game programme.

After The Match

Post match interviews for U's games are usually straightforward enough. Aaron from the Cambridge News and I wait for Jimmy after the match to get the quotes, comments and reaction we need without too much hassle. Of course I expected Wembley to be a little different, but I'm not sure I was quite expecting how different it would prove to be.

A little while after the presentations, the press were led down to a 'mixed zone' in the bowels of the stadium. Strategically positioned between the dressing rooms and the team coaches, the assorted hacks were corralled between barriers that would not have looked out of place at a cattle market while we patiently (or not so patiently, in some national media cases) awaited the arrival of the mangers and players. It was like feeding time at the zoo when the managers appeared, with a scrum of reporters all desperate to get their recording device as close to the manager as possible, irrespective of who was between them and their target. Being a shy soul, I had to be more forceful than comes naturally to prevent my interview with Jimmy being interrupted by reporters who hadn't covered U's before and may never do so again, and I have to say that Jimmy was tremendous in helping me do so by ignoring other questions until I'd finished.

Once the interviews were done, it was back through the maze to the broadcast point to finish up for the day before repairing to the hotel bar to reflect on a season that was so memorable and so nearly perfect. Roll on August!

Mileage: 106.2 miles

Total Distance for Season: 6,866.9 miles

Mark Johnson

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