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…..