Wem-ber-lee

I went to the England v Brazil match at the new Wembley on Friday, which, kind of strangely, is the first match I have ever been to at Wembley, new or old.

The match itself was OK (note it was also David Beckham's big comeback), got better in the second half, finished 1-1 with Brazil scoring with the last touch of the game, but it was all really secondary to the whole occasion in my opinion. Here's my thoughts on the stadium....

- It is huge, certainly the biggest stadium I have seen (although that isn't saying much, as I have only seen the Millenium). But I think it is bigger than normal because of the amount of legroom each seat has, which, whilst not so important for short-arses like me, I guess is important.

- The downside of this is that, despite only being in row 19, I felt like I was miles away from the pitch, even having trouble distinguishing different players. Admittedly I was in the corner, so we'll have to see if it is better if I am in my favoured position closer to the halfway line

- The arch is impressive from a distance, but when you are actually in the staium doesn't really have any impact, although I guess that's the point, as the old twin towers were only for outside

- The food and drink is expensive (£3.50 for a beer, £4.50 for a pie), but actually not as expensive as I was led to believe. Also, the programme was the same price as it has been for a few years, so they obviously rejected the temptation to increase those prices.

- I was sat near the Sheffield Wednesday band and the Portsmouth nutter and his bell (I think he is known as Mr Portsmouth), so there was plenty of noise around my area, but the rest of the stadium did seem quite quiet, so it will be interesting to see whether it does manage to generate a good atmosphere in important games.

- The train links were still as bad as ever, and I had to get Tina to come get me after I had walked about 45 minutes towards Harrow. I think when I go again I will either arrange a pick up beforehand, or just mill around for a few hours to let the queues die down

- I was going to take a camera to take pictures, but forgot....I'm so rubbish sometimes