Making History

On March 24th, after seemingly a million years in the making, Wembley National Stadium will host it's first game after being completely rebuilt.

The England under 21 team, being managed on the day by Nigel Pearson will take on Italy under 21's in front of a crowd of 60,000.

This match has been organised as a ramp up event in order for the FA to test the stadium before it gets its final safety certificate to host the FA Cup Final on May 19th.

What makes this match even extra special is that I am going!

I joined up yesterday in a virtual queue amongst the many others who tirelessly hit F5 in the hope that the refreshed page would bring entry into the FA's ticketing website instead of one of the three error pages that I seemed to get for near on an hour.

Whether or not the match will remain historically as the "first game", or will be overshadowed by the FA Cup final remains to be seen. But in my eyes I will be one of the first people at the new stadium and something to tell Oliver when he is growing up!

Image: Where we will be sitting at Wembley

There wasn't many seats left by the time I got my tickets, and was given the choice of level one or level five. Having been sat at the front at Old Trafford and the Emirates Stadium this season I wanted to sit a little higher up, and judging by the picture above, which shows roughly were we will be, I am going to be sitting higher up alright!

I have great memories of the old stadium, the two best games I have ever seen were at Wembley - the two playoff finals with Gillingham. I also saw Michael Owen make his England debut against Chile and saw Oasis in concert, but to see the first game at the new stadium will be something to remember!

From the pictures I have seen the new stadium looks amazing and I am looking forward to the trip next week. I will of course be taking my camera and adding plenty of photos to the website!

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