Back when tickets first went on sale for the rebuilt Wembley Stadium the idea of splashing out for ten years’ worth of Club Wembley access horrified me, not just because of the expense but because I’m no advocate of football’s commercialisation and I certainly don’t favour anything that treats the action on offer as some primitive, dumbed down form of theatre.
I swore there and then that I’d never set foot inside Club Wembley. I’m a football traditionalist and a football traditionalist I shall remain. To this day, I’ve been true to my word. Er…sort of.
On Wednesday night, thanks to our friends at Umbro, I leapfrogged Club Wembley and headed straight into another world, a world where football is a mere sideshow and leggy blonde teenagers are paid to smile at and hold doors open for the great and the good. And, for one night only, a couple of sarcastic and cynical football bloggers. The FA Club (pictured) is a phenomenon I had no idea existed within our national stadium. Despite an enjoyable evening in wonderful company, I wish I still didn’t.
The FA Club experience is one so surreal that I’m certain I’ll look back on it in weeks to come and convince myself that the free booze came from a not-free hotel minibar and I’d actually spent the evening hallucinating in a pool of gravy and urine about tiny food and Martin Keown’s strangely polished and yet slightly awkward stage manner.
After going through a good three or four levels of security, we were handed a bottle of a well-known lager on the way into the grand room; this was a trend that continued throughout the evening. Pool, table football and air hockey were all on offer (and on the FA, of course) along with an impressive selection of what can only be described as pick-and-mix food. Sweet chilli chicken noodles and miniature bangers and mash do not a tasty partnership make, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Bizarrely, The FA Club clientele doubles up for the majority of the evening as a live studio audience for another odd FA enterprise, namely the television football experience in person. Jake Humphrey ably anchored the night, squeezing the occasional bit of useful punditry from BBC colleague Martin Keown and nothing at all from Sky’s Chris Kamara except another seamless plug for that oil company that paid him to change his name in the summer.
Add in an insightful couple of minutes from ITV’s Clive Tyldesley pitchside and we’d been treated to a heady supergroup of football punditry that left me unsure about my feelings towards these men being in the FA’s employ. I’m pretty sure Toby Anstis recorded the public announcements in there too.
The serious point, of course, is that the Football Association has to do this kind of thing because without it, Wembley simply can’t exist. North-west London’s white elephant has caused the FA to embark upon a desperate scramble for money. Why does the FA Club exist? In part, it’s so that Trevor Brooking, Peter Ridsdale and unbearable TV twat Ben Shepherd have somewhere to be before the game, although I think Sir Trev slinked off in a dignified way before proceedings really began.
But really, it’s the same reason we have to put up with mind-bogglingly expensive tickets and FA Cup semi-finals at Wembley: our governing body needs to pay for a truly disastrous project. Still, at least the pitch looked decent.
There was a football match too, of course. I faintly remember it happening between a brief interview with Connor Wickham and a phenomenal pie so small that I’d have pretended to be a giant were I not in sophisticated company.
The game itself has been analysed to death elsewhere, so I’ll be brief: the performance was as disjointed as you’d expect from a side with new players after a bad tournament, but I’m glad I was there for two breath-taking goals and good individual performances from Ashley Cole, Steven Gerrard and, in flashes, Theo Walcott and Ashley Young. Adam Johnson and Kieran Gibbs looked comfortable too.
As for the FA Club, I had fun and I’ll probably do it again, but it’s no way to watch football on a regular basis, especially if you care deeply about the outcome. I may have had a great time, but I’m itching for the Ryman Premier to start so I can get back to gritty, balls-out reality. This is the dichotomy that will come to dominate modern football.
Tags: England, Football Association, Wembley