Friday, May 19, 2006
WHU-AU Cardiff Report
Hiya
Just a quick report on the day out in Cardiff...the whole city was bubbling (pun intended). We (DPL's tour party) stayed in Cheltenham the night before and got to Cardiff about 10am cause DPL had to do a couple of radio spots - the Five Live one had a spiel about my 3 month old Ben and the FA trying to charge him full adult price at the last minute! (As it turned out we didn't take him to the game anyway - we got someone to look after him which was a good move).
Arriving so early gave us heaps of time to soak up the atmosphere - amazing. Just on our way to Cardiff in the coach was incredible, seeing all of the cars decorated with flags and scarves and stuff. At the toll plaza there were about 200 cars all festooned in claret and blue.
We ran in to our mate Rick outside the ground who flew there and back from OZ a day either side of the game - a mighty effort.
No hassles getting in my camera & 400mm lens. I have some good photos that I will probably not get to post till we get back to Brisbane in mid June.
We had seats in the next section to the press gallery, about 30 feet from the sideline, deep in the WHU area. From the moment you walked in the atmosphere was amazing. The noise was off the dial and everyone just had this great sense of anticipation. Bubbles were blowing and people were singing.
The teams were announced and Matty & Deano were in (excellent) as was Scaloni (hmmmm).
Its a cliche but the game *was* a roller coaster ride of emotions. Its hard to put into words what happened when we scored so I won't try, suffice to say it went off....then a 2nd and we dared to hope. As we found out later, not since 1966 has a team led by 2 goals in the cup final and been beaten :( . We thought we were gone when they got both goals back but then Konchy's flukey cross had us thinking this was gonna be the fairytale ending.
Ant then just as the time added on was announced our hearts were ripped out. Ashton was off, Marlon was completley hobbled...deep down we knew what was to come..fading and dying :(
The scenes at the end showed what it meant to the players.....
I hafta get off this puter so I'll finish off in a comment later...
Tony
Just a quick report on the day out in Cardiff...the whole city was bubbling (pun intended). We (DPL's tour party) stayed in Cheltenham the night before and got to Cardiff about 10am cause DPL had to do a couple of radio spots - the Five Live one had a spiel about my 3 month old Ben and the FA trying to charge him full adult price at the last minute! (As it turned out we didn't take him to the game anyway - we got someone to look after him which was a good move).
Arriving so early gave us heaps of time to soak up the atmosphere - amazing. Just on our way to Cardiff in the coach was incredible, seeing all of the cars decorated with flags and scarves and stuff. At the toll plaza there were about 200 cars all festooned in claret and blue.
We ran in to our mate Rick outside the ground who flew there and back from OZ a day either side of the game - a mighty effort.
No hassles getting in my camera & 400mm lens. I have some good photos that I will probably not get to post till we get back to Brisbane in mid June.
We had seats in the next section to the press gallery, about 30 feet from the sideline, deep in the WHU area. From the moment you walked in the atmosphere was amazing. The noise was off the dial and everyone just had this great sense of anticipation. Bubbles were blowing and people were singing.
The teams were announced and Matty & Deano were in (excellent) as was Scaloni (hmmmm).
Its a cliche but the game *was* a roller coaster ride of emotions. Its hard to put into words what happened when we scored so I won't try, suffice to say it went off....then a 2nd and we dared to hope. As we found out later, not since 1966 has a team led by 2 goals in the cup final and been beaten :( . We thought we were gone when they got both goals back but then Konchy's flukey cross had us thinking this was gonna be the fairytale ending.
Ant then just as the time added on was announced our hearts were ripped out. Ashton was off, Marlon was completley hobbled...deep down we knew what was to come..fading and dying :(
The scenes at the end showed what it meant to the players.....
I hafta get off this puter so I'll finish off in a comment later...
Tony
