The excitement of Wembley Stadium ahead of the friendly match between England and Wales.

The crowds slowly starting to form for the match, which was in aid of the Alzheimer’s Society.

The stadium before the crowds arrived.

Getting busier. Apparently matches can have as many as 2,000 stewards and everything felt organised.

The players arrive. I hope no-one is expecting a detailed summary of the players, their performance or anything substantial about the football.

And we’re off. Well, the players came out to have a little kick about before going back in for a rest, or whatever it is that they do.

Getting ready to lay the FA flag onto the pitch. They didn’t use kids for the mascots and instead had 22 fans who were living with dementia, something that I thought was a rather lovely idea.

The flag in place. I did a video of the pre-match excitement….

Players walked onto the field and then they played the national anthems. The Welsh fans were very vocal and energetic during the match, they did their team proud.

There were three goals in quick succession at the beginning of the match, so England were 3-0 up after 20 minutes. Apparently the players who kicked the ball into the net were Morgan Rogers (3 minutes), Ollie Watkins (11 minutes) and Bukayo Saka (20 minutes) with the last one being quite good I think. I was pleased that no-one in the area near me felt the need to jump up and down a lot (or actually at all) as I find it easier to stay sitting down.

Thomas Tuchel, who I understand is the England manager. He also seems very good and I rather like this European approach of the FA.

I was puzzled as to why the players didn’t have their names on their shirts during the second half as I was sure that they did in the first half. It transpired that this was to fit into the theme of Alzheimer’s and it aimed to raise awareness of how the illness impacts memory. I must admit that is lovely, although it had the side issue that unless it was Jordan Pickford (I find it easy to identify the goalkeeper and I did learn the name of the Welsh one, but I’ve since forgotten it) I didn’t know who was kicking the ball.

The attendance at the game was 78,126 which seems like a lot of people. The stadium can in theory hold 90,000 people, but this was a higher attendance that I had been anticipating.

The final score was 3-0.

The expert football supporters might notice that I’m not really entirely knowledgeable about the current England and Wales football squads and I might have had to look up on Wikipedia who the managers were. But the venue was safe, secure and the football was interesting to watch, so I might go and do this again…..

And for anyone interested, of which I accept the number is limited, here’s the opening ceremony (as it were) of the England vs Wales match at Wembley. I feel that the person searching for their seat adds a little something to this video. More about the match (of which very little will be football related as this isn’t a sporty blog) in the next post…

My random excursion of the day was to see this, in Brent River Park in Wembley.

And OK, it looks a little random in its current landscape. Without any clues, no-one I showed this photo to was able to tell me what it was, although I would have been surprised if anyone did know as it’s quite out of context here.

But, as this sign suggests, it’s one of the few things that remains from the Old Wembley Stadium and its the base of one of the flagpoles from the Twin Towers. Work on that stadium started 100 years ago, in 1922, and it was completed in 1923. There was a major renovation to the structure in 1963 before the World Cup in 1966, but the stadium was demolished between 2002 and 2003 to be replaced with the current arrangement. There was vague efforts made to save the famous twin towers which had been Grade II listed in 1976, but as they were made of ferro-concrete and had only ever been designed to be temporary, the developers claimed they couldn’t possibly be saved. Lots of planning arguments were made about this, but in the end the developers got their way and they were destroyed.

This remaining section at least seems quite robust and it has been here since June 2003, a reminder of the Wembley Twin Towers.

This is what the site looks like today with the modern stadium.

Before writing this, I feel the need to say that the Accor customer service seems to be in a difficult place (or they just dislike me, which is fair enough, although I’d rather they said that as it’d make for a decent blog post on its own), so it’s probably best to book using a third party booking agent.

I’ve been to this Ibis hotel in Wembley on a few occasions before (1, 2 and 3 before I stopped writing about it) and it has always been reliable. I wasn’t going to write again given the number of previous posts, but I particularly liked this visit.

The check-in process was a bit convoluted as I was told that all guests need to show ID. I don’t have my passport as it didn’t seem to be necessary to visit Wembley (although I was in Pimlico yesterday, but that’s an irrelevant reference really) and I don’t have a driving licence. The situation didn’t seem ideal as with the exception of the ever quirky Ibis Styles Walthamstow, I’ve never been asked for ID by Accor in the UK. After dropping out of the queue and finding a photo of my passport on my phone I went back to reception, with the staff member being pleased with this, which was fortunate as I didn’t have any other solutions. He then looked at my details on his device and found my booking, before telling me that I hadn’t needed to show ID. I decided not to question what had gone on here. The staff member was friendly, although I had to ask for the welcome drink.

Just as I like it, my room was on the top floor and I’ve never had a view of Wembley from this direction. I rather liked the hills (well, what I call hills) in the background, although that building in the front does monopolise the view somewhat.

This is also the largest room that I’ve had in this hotel, all spotlessly clean and well presented. Its location in the corner of the building also made it incredibly quiet, which was rather lovely. I was also able to open the window so that I could hear life outside, albeit 14 floors down. The room also only had wi-fi in around one half of it which was nearest to the door. It transpired that being in the corner of the building was a problem for mobile and wi-fi signal.

The bar on the ground floor and the beer selection hasn’t changed from my last visit, with the Goose Island being entirely acceptable to me.

The prices charged here are generally low (which is why I keep staying here), unless there’s some sort of event on at Wembley. There’s a great deal of hotel capacity in the Wembley area which is designed to serve the events and sports market (the hotel overlooks Wembley Stadium), which has been badly affected by the whole pandemic thing. For me, this is a very good hotel which is well managed, clean and organised. I suspect that I’ll meander back at some point.

I don’t burden my limited readership with many posts about football, but even I got some slight excitement when I was at Wembley seeing the preparations for the UEFA Euro 2020 championships (I was there anyway, I hadn’t gone specially….). There were also some people being interviewed which were attracting a crowd, but I didn’t know who they were, so that riveting football chat of mine doesn’t add much to this post.

Anyway, I might get into the spirit of the whole thing and watch the occasional match at a pub. As long as it’s got decent craft beer….. There was though a real vibe around Wembley at the moment that I haven’t noted on my previous visits, so the excitement must be in the air.

Once again, this post is more for me to remember another night in Wembley rather than any extra use that a third report on the same hotel can offer anyone else. There’s not much useful I can add about the welcome, the staff member was friendly and the check-in procedure was painless. Certainly nothing negative to mention.

The room, on the fourteenth and top floor again. All clean and as it should be, although it doesn’t have a television like the first time I stayed where I could cast my phone to it. I managed to get by without such decadence. I did note that the desk had been fixed, by use of supports, from what looked like when a previous guest had sat on it or similar…

The Government’s new rules means that hotel bars can stay open if customers order a substantial meal with their alcohol, or if they just have soft drinks. The hotel rules do though allow customers to take alcohol to their room, so that’s what happened to my welcome drink. Not really ideally poured, but I was just pleased that the drink option was still available and that Goose Island Midway Session IPA was still there.

The view from the room over the Borough of Brent. There’s no shortage of construction work going on around here, I assume primarily residential as it’s quite an easy location to commute to and from for those wanting to work in the capital.

And the view over Wembley in the morning, although I think I prefer the night-time view. Anyway, all was quiet in the hotel, they have windows that open to allow for ventilation, the temperature was perfect and I have nothing negative to say. How very lovely.

I have to confess to another little trip to JD Wetherspoon for breakfast, since it’s cheap on Mondays to Wednesdays and also much cheaper than anything that the Wembley Ibis was offering.

I last visited this pub in 2012, so have managed to forget everything about it. It’s a much larger pub that I expected (I’m not sure why I expected anything since I’d forgotten everything about it, but I digress) and it wasn’t particularly busy either. The interior is all inoffensive and clean and JD Wetherspoon opened here in 1989, so this is one of their earlier projects. Before it was used as a licensed premises, this was the shop which was run by William Perring & Co Ltd, House Furnishers.

Another photo of the interior. The staff here seemed friendly and welcoming, so it was a comfortable environment. I don’t know if they still do it, but I know a few years ago that surge pricing was in operation here, so prices were higher on match and event days, since it’s near to Wembley Stadium. It must be challenging running a pub like this so close to Wembley, as the volume of customers would be potentially huge in a short period of time.

The pub has this display about John D Barrow, a cosmologist who was born and educated locally. He died a few weeks ago, on 26 September 2020, aged 67.

And the £2.99 traditional breakfast, which was all as expected. Not more to add about these, they’re cheap and cheerful, with the quality of the ingredients being OK.

So, a perfectly nice pub, and they’ve also handily made sure that there are plenty of power points for customers, which is always useful (well, for me). Friendly staff, clean environment and a suitably interesting range of beers.

I was at this hotel a few days ago (well, two days ago) and all was well with the stay. This stay again cost just a few pounds thanks to the Accor offer that they’ve currently got going on, which is most lovely and represented really excellent value for money.

I commented on this lack of reception area in my last post, and it failed them on this visit. I had to traipse over to the bar to get help after standing here for too long (although I accept by traipse, I mean walk about three metres) and then the barman had to traipse back to the office. I don’t know how this set-up helps them, a traditional reception desk would make things easier. It didn’t take long to get checked-in and, anyway, I’m sounding grumpy and I’m not, I like this hotel.

The room, which didn’t have the fancy television I had the other day. The room was again on the top floor, just around the corner from my previous room. As a positive, this television didn’t keep turning itself on.

The view was a little less exciting than before, but still rather lovely.

This was the free welcome drink, I had the same Goose Island option as before (although I’ve got muddled up on Untappd as I seem to have listed one wrongly), it’s a perfectly good option. I wonder whether they also operate Ibis Heathrow, as they have the identical drinks choices as that hotel. The barman was friendly and engaging, it’s a comfortable bar area they have themselves on the ground floor, although it’s not that large.

Anyway, it was another comfortable stay, with everything being clean and organised. Keenly priced again at under £40, even without the Accor offers, it seemed quiet and I don’t think that they had that many guests in the hotel.

The Accor offer that I wrote about the other day appears to be working, so this stay cost me around £16 for the night, which I don’t think is too bad at all. It’s located near to Wembley Stadium and just a short walk away from the underground, so it’s all convenient to get to. I wasn’t a fan of their reception desk though, it’s in a strange place tucked into a corner which isn’t immediately obvious and it’s not near the bar and so their staff need to keep traipsing over. But, to be fair, I have more things in life to worry about than the design of hotels and where they’ve put the reception desk. Although I’ve now written about it, so perhaps I don’t. Anyway, I digress.

This is a standard Ibis room and was clean and comfortable. The television, which had the annoying habit of switching itself on randomly, allowed me to cast my phone so that I could watch Netflix on it. I don’t normally ever switch the television on in hotels rooms (I didn’t have a choice here since it seemed to like being on, but perhaps it needed the company) so this was a nice little change.

The view from my hotel room, which was on the top floor.

I didn’t have breakfast, but this sounds a little bland and the choice of eggs is unnecessarily limited and where’s the bacon? There’s no religious sensibility here, they were serving it until a few months ago. Anyway, breakfast is too much hassle at the moment, so I went to get a free smoothie from Pret instead with my subscription.

The choice of beers, which was adequate if not exceptional. The Midway IPA from Goose Island was decent enough though, although if you’re paying for it then it’s pricey at £5.75 a pint. I was pleased to get mine free as a welcome drink and also pleased to have a choice of most drinks.

The bar area, all clean and organised, with a few customers to the right out of my photo. The staff here were excellent, friendly and helpful, everything was done efficiently and without unnecessary delay. The hotel was quiet internally and externally, although I can’t imagine that they filled that many of their 210 rooms. The hotel picks up a fair number of negative reviews that I would describe as quite picky for a three-star hotel, but I suspect this is because when an event or match is on at Wembley then the price of rooms soars, so expectations rightfully increase.

I liked the clearly exasperated response from the manager to one grumbling review about the room being too small:

“I appreciate that you felt the room was too small; regrettably this is not something we are able to change easily.”

Anyway, as a hotel, I liked this one, which is fortunate as I’m going back there tomorrow….