Earlier this summer I visited Wembley Stadium for the EFL Championship play-off final. And it was legitimately the worst experience at a football game I've ever had in my life, and it would take a lot to top this.

There was already a lot of confusion surrounding this; only 4 days before matchday, I had booked my travel and accommodation. And even then, I still had no idea if my team were going to be involved in this game, simply because of the Spygate scandal. Even if the decision to remove Southampton from the final was reversed, I'd still have ended up going to London because the travel and Airbnb I booked were both non-refundable.

Skipping past all the noise about that, I'll start with my coach journey.

My coach was booked to get us from some bus stop in Middlesbrough at 00:45 AM, and my first mistake came to bite me at the very first possible point. My plan was to just sleep the whole way there, which hasn't ever been too much of an issue for me. But for some reason, this time I only managed to get about an hour and a half of sleep. For some odd reason, it didn't cross my mind that this was going to be a serious issue later on.

We got to London and were dropped off at some random bus stop next to an underground station. Fortunately I'd already researched and planned exactly where I needed to go; I just needed to figure out how to execute said plan. I don't know why, but one of the turnstiles for the station was open when we walked in, and I genuinely wasn't aware that you had to tap anything for them to be open. One of them was just already open, so I walked through and had a look at the map. After some confusion, we ended up on a tube to central London. My plan starting off was to get some food then look at London's monuments and whatnot. That plan was quickly overshadowed by the quest to find a toilet; it was a really unpleasant surprise to struggle so much finding a toilet in London. We walked all over the place, I checked multiple McDonald's branches and somehow every single one didn't have a toilet I could use, which was incredibly strange to me. It took me over an hour before I eventually found one in Waterloo train station. Shortly after this, I searched up why there's a lack of toilets in the city and it's because they're often places for late-night crime, and they are also too expensive to run. After wasting an hour and a bit trying to find a toilet, we went and saw some of the cool stuff around London.

Because of the extreme heat (it was 30°C that day), I became incredibly fatigued quite quickly, but the Airbnb I booked said that we could only check in after 3:00 PM. It was about 10:00 AM. Regardless, we got a tube and walked to the house as we didn't really have anything better to do. I gave them a call to see if we could go in now, and we were allowed. The room we were in was absolutely awful, but I couldn't really expect any more, especially when I booked this in a severe rush while on a budget. It was just a bed, table, and a wardrobe, unreal stuff.

After a bit of waiting, it was time to leave for Wembley. We got there at about 2:00 PM.

Another problem: when I got on to buy tickets for the match, the sections that I would've wanted to sit in were all sold out (so I thought). So I moved up a tier and bought more expensive tickets there, which were £61.50, whereas the seats I wanted were around £50. The day after I bought my tickets, I went back on the site to see how many tickets were left, and noticed that the block I wanted to sit in was back open. I opened it and saw the entire block completely unsold. The seats we got were good, but it's not to my personal preferences; I prefer to be in areas where the fans in them are standing and very loud. Where I ended up being sat was a comfortable, padded seat (which probably didn't help with my fight against sleep) in a quiet area, which is the exact opposite of what I want to experience when I go to the football. It may have been a slight blessing in disguise though, as in the blocks I wanted to be in, everyone was standing. This is what I wanted, however I don't think I would've wanted it in the state I was in on the day.

I was quite hungry so I went down to look at food prices, but it was like 12 quid for a burger, and I am quite frugal so I stayed hungry (another mistake). It was time for kick-off and I was full of energy from the moment I got in the stadium until about minute 35, where from that point on, I was fighting sleep the whole time. This all happened because of my previous mistakes:

1. Booking travel at 00:45 AM
2. Not eating enough before the match
3. Not taking a nap while I had the chance

Number 1 was obviously a mistake, but it wasn't really my fault considering that we had to book things on such short notice. When I was booking it, I began second-guessing if I even wanted to go, so at one point I decided no and closed the tab. About 2 minutes later I changed my mind and reopened it; the prices of the coaches from Middlesbrough to London had increased by about £30. Once I saw that, I swiftly booked the first return coach I saw, which happened to be an incredibly bad choice. In total, I paid £132.70 for 2x tickets, which I split with the person I was going with.

Focusing on the actual football, the game was incredibly frustrating to watch. I saw it coming and it was a copy of a game we'd played against Hull earlier that season. Sergej Jakirović set his team up to sit back and invite pressure, correctly predicting that starving us of any meaningful chances and focusing on defense would be effective against our team. This game was frustrating to watch, and ended in the most heartbreaking manner. Hull scored a 94th-minute winner which denied our incredibly lucky last chance at a return to the Premier League.

I don't ever feel rage when it comes to football; of course it's very annoying, but I never let lows in the sport affect me nearly as much as I let the highs do. Whenever stuff like this happens, I just feel a bit empty, you could say.

I also had a really bad experience after the match, as I was woken up by a significant amount of noise in this house I was in at around 11:00 PM. It was a lot of heavy footsteps, shouting, and overall a very confusing environment to be around. I have absolutely no idea what was going on, but my best guess is that it was just Hull fans partying in this house. Next time I go to Wembley, I need to prioritize booking hotels rather than Airbnbs because the terrible quality stay in that BNB is enough to make me never want to get another one again.

Conclusion

That was the worst trip ever, at least I can learn from the many mistakes I made here and apply my knowledge for the next time I take a trip to Wembley.

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Thank you so much for reading! If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email me at hello@miguelgalimba.com.