As well as taking part in a variety of sports I also love watching sporting events. Holidays are often arranged around going to watch different events, so in recent years I have been to the Commonwealths in Glasgow, seen the Giro in Belfast and the Tour in France and Yorkshire, Swimming in the Olympic Pool at Stratford and tennis at Wimbledon and the O2. So when the ballot for the Rugby World Cup opened I instantly entered to try to get tickets. The week before the ballot went live I had printed out all the matches and set about planning what matches I wanted to see. I decided not to try for tickets for any of the home nations as felt they would be hugely over subscribed, so instead I went for tickets of teams that I had not had the chance to watch live before. I did not go crazy trying for lots of matches as was worried that I would end up getting them all and have to pay out loads of money, so I settled on targeting 5 matches. The results of the ballot actually came out via email on the day I was at the Olympic Velodrome watching track cycling, so it was a case of checking my emails as often as I could to see what tickets I got. I was really pleased to find out that I was successful in getting 4 out of the 5 matches!
Last Sunday was my first match, Australia Vs Uruguay at Villa Park, Birmingham. I had spent ages online planning my journey as I planned to go by train so got the earliest train possible on the Sunday morning to make sure I got to the match on time. I should have known the day was not going to go my way when I got to the platform to find the train was completely rammed, fortunately they decided to add 4 extra carriages which was great as I managed to get a seat but moving the carriages meant we was 20 minutes late leaving the station. Two stations later our carriages were also rammed and still hundreds of people were trying to get on! In the end the train driver had to tell them to step away from the doors and that another train would be along in 10 minutes. This caused even more delays but eventually we made it to Birmingham were we was supposed to change trains to get to Villa Park. At the station we were sent to the back of a huge queue, but a member of staff soon came around tell us there was a problem with the trains and they might not get us on the train. This was now 50 minutes before the kick off and it would take 55 minutes to walk! So we put the sat nav on the phone and ran! The sat nav sent us on quite a random route but we happened to go past a culture festival so the nice security man said we was going the wrong way and tried to direct us the correct direction. Time was ticking past and I was getting more and more concerned we would not make the match when we ran around a corner to find a local bus that was empty but was going exactly were we needed to go!! So we quickly jumped on, fortunately a local got on the bus so told us were we needed to get off! So we quickly ran towards the stadium, rushed through the bag search and dashed to our seats. We ended up sitting down 10 minutes before kick off!
We started watching the match as a neutral but like every other neutral in the stadium we soon ended up supporting Uruguay! It was just a massive shame that they failed to score more points as the cheer when they did manage to score their 3 points was amazing!! The atmosphere in the stadium was amazing and I had a fantastic time, it was just a shame that I was sat in the away fans end as the seats had absolutely no leg room, so sorry to the guy in front who I kept kneeing in the back!
After the match I had a more relaxed stroll around the stadium rather than the rushing when I arrived! We stopped of at the merchandise stall to grab myself a cap before we had a stroll back into the city centre! We had always planned to walk back into the city as we had been warned that the buses and trains would be manic! There were loads of member of the pack along the route to help guide us, fortunately it was a beautiful sunny day, the walk might have been different in the pouring rain!
As the match had a 12:00 kick off we had a late breakfast so we could eat a late lunch after the match. I heard lots of people talk about Five Guys so decided to pay them a visit. The burgers were much more expensive than other takeaway burger restaurants but the burgers were so tasty and I loved the fact you could add a varitey of toppings of your choice. We did not have a milkshake this time but would consider a milkshake next time although would leave out the bacon! After our food we headed back to the station for our trip home, the train was very busy but at least this time it ran to schedule!
So 1 match down, 3 more to go!! 🙂
Run faster see the world sooner 