I arrived in the UK last Sunday with Rebecca and Max in tow and almost immediately headed into the Olympic fray. Late in the afternoon of both Monday and Tuesday we headed to Wembley for respectively the semi-finals of the women's and men's soccer. The games were between Japan and France (women) and Mexico and Japan (men) with the first team mentioned winning in both cases. So the Japanese won the first and lost the second.
Believe it or not, I thought that the women's game was the more exciting and perhaps even the more skillful! The new Wembley stadium was spectacular, with seating for 100,000 people. Here it is seen from Olympic Way leading from the metro to the ground. These pictures were taken when it was not busy - we arrived too early the first time, but try to imagine this corridor with maybe 60,000 people in it stationary and wall to wall either side - it was like this on both evenings as people tried to make their way home!
The next two pictures show some of the spacious interior - the first with the two women's teams standing for the their national anthems. Alas, the ground was only half full for the ladies! The second of the two shows one of the Mexican Waves which flashed past every few minutes - and which became a boring stunt after a while
In the first game we were even favoured by some of the best seating in the ground - plush seats in the Bobby Moore enclosure! However, getting to Wembley and back from central London was a nightmare. Public transport could barely cope with 100,000 people and the Jubilee line trains we took needed Japanese style packers to push everyone into a sardine-like configuration in the carriages. Max, for one, was not impressed. Little people tend to get trampled in such circumstances.
Security was billed as being tight at venues, but seemed pretty relaxed by the standards of modern airports. And we had a half expected disaster after the Tuesday evening game when Bec and Max became separated from us and found themselves in London without rail tickets well ahead of Phillip and me. Fortunately we met up by accident at Waterloo Station, but not until after a lot of angst and searching. By the time we arrived back in Poole it was midnight and poor Max was zapped. However, Max had one arresting moment on the Monday, but eventually came to no harm! He also met his cousin Lucie who had come up from Plymouth for the game - they got on well together, which was good!
The Japanese supporters were thick on the ground for the first game, but much less visible for the second, with both instances being favourable. They went bananas over the first win by their side and there was much merriment. I hope these happy visitors don't mind me giving them exposure on this Blog!
Alas, I post no pictures of the match itself ... we were too far back in the stand, my camera has only limited magnification, and the pictures I tried to take were minus a ball, which was somewhere else by the time I pressed the shutter!
AS
Believe it or not, I thought that the women's game was the more exciting and perhaps even the more skillful! The new Wembley stadium was spectacular, with seating for 100,000 people. Here it is seen from Olympic Way leading from the metro to the ground. These pictures were taken when it was not busy - we arrived too early the first time, but try to imagine this corridor with maybe 60,000 people in it stationary and wall to wall either side - it was like this on both evenings as people tried to make their way home!
The next two pictures show some of the spacious interior - the first with the two women's teams standing for the their national anthems. Alas, the ground was only half full for the ladies! The second of the two shows one of the Mexican Waves which flashed past every few minutes - and which became a boring stunt after a while
In the first game we were even favoured by some of the best seating in the ground - plush seats in the Bobby Moore enclosure! However, getting to Wembley and back from central London was a nightmare. Public transport could barely cope with 100,000 people and the Jubilee line trains we took needed Japanese style packers to push everyone into a sardine-like configuration in the carriages. Max, for one, was not impressed. Little people tend to get trampled in such circumstances.
Security was billed as being tight at venues, but seemed pretty relaxed by the standards of modern airports. And we had a half expected disaster after the Tuesday evening game when Bec and Max became separated from us and found themselves in London without rail tickets well ahead of Phillip and me. Fortunately we met up by accident at Waterloo Station, but not until after a lot of angst and searching. By the time we arrived back in Poole it was midnight and poor Max was zapped. However, Max had one arresting moment on the Monday, but eventually came to no harm! He also met his cousin Lucie who had come up from Plymouth for the game - they got on well together, which was good!
The Japanese supporters were thick on the ground for the first game, but much less visible for the second, with both instances being favourable. They went bananas over the first win by their side and there was much merriment. I hope these happy visitors don't mind me giving them exposure on this Blog!
Alas, I post no pictures of the match itself ... we were too far back in the stand, my camera has only limited magnification, and the pictures I tried to take were minus a ball, which was somewhere else by the time I pressed the shutter!
AS
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