By Fintan O'Toole

Anxiety was rapidly starting to set in outside Wembley this afternoon, with just 90 minutes from kick-off and no discernible sign of an FA Cup Final ticket being pressed into my palm. All week the budget limits I had erected were consistently shifted upward as the desire to attend clouded my better judgement. Yet my plans to watch Everton’s first showpiece appearance since 1995 appeared scuppered by the sheer absence of ticket retailers aka touts, selling their wares.

Then the Messiah arrived outside the Wembley Plaza Hotel. And although there was crazed hype surrounding the presence of some kid off Britain’s Got Talent in the foyer, the person I wanted to deify was Dave, the Londoner in possession of a bunch of tickets which he was willing to sell, albeit with some provisos. Firstly he was looking for a princely sum and secondly his quota of Everton tickets was gone. In desperate times came desperate measures. My haggling skills proved better than anticipated as he dropped his asking price and the decision was taken to go behind enemy lines and sit in the Chelsea end. 

The initial euphoria at procuring a ticket was negated soon after by a nagging fear that the ticket might prove bogus and I was about to watch the FA Cup Final in an Everton jersey surrounded by hardcore Chelsea ultras. But the ticket was successfully swiped through the entrance machines and the seat location proved to be excellent. There was a surprisingly healthy quota of Toffees around me – the father and son who were shocked to see other Everton fans, the pair of 40 year-old Scousers that were certainly burly enough to protect us from any rival support and Scott seating next to me, an Australian who had flown back from a business trip in Hong Kong the night before to see his hero Tim Cahill play for Everton in an FA Cup Final. It transpired Scott had also done business with Dave the Londoner, yet had failed to haggle as successfully which generated immense glee for myself. 

It was my first time in Wembley since the builders spruced it up and my verdict was an unequivocal thumbs up. It ticked the boxes of comfort, aesthetics and pitch view, yet that might have had something to do with the fact that I was sitting in the elitist Club Wembley section. I had never been stationed this close to a corporate setting at a sports event, yet was left hugely disappointed by nary a sight of a prawn sandwich.

Having won my own battle to gain entry, there was an acute disappointment that Moyes’ boys on the pitch could not achieve a similar victory. Granted they did produce a sensational start, Louis Saha’s early thunderbolt prompting an initial wave of disbelief that Everton had taken the lead, rapidly followed by crazed celebrations from our small band of Toffees. Sadly the rest of the game was spent on the backfoot and the better side departed with the canister. Still I had my own victory to cherish.