Twickenham England V Wales 07/02/26

 

Twickenham England V Wales 07/02/26



Peter and I met at the railway station in Sheffield for Peter's birthday treat to go to the Alianz stadium and watch England play rugby. How lucky am I to accompany him on this fantastic trip. Parking on Norfolk Road was ok though it was quite full. Its a small hill down to the station. Good place to park and its free, well we are from Yorkshire. Even in the moist gloom of a February morning the city looks great.

2 hours on the train and we are in St Pancras. The journey was very easy and on time. The first class treats a tapas (me) and ploughmans (Peter) meal plus crisps, prezels and cake were welcome and actually quite nice. The seats are very comfortable making the journey so much more pleasant. 
Its a long walk through the station to the victoria Line in Kings Cross and it reminded both of us of our times in London when this route was much tattier than it is now. We got the quiet tube to Vauxall where we were to change for the overland connection to Twickenham. It was a non-stop conversation quite a lot around our London experiences and a fair amount about our much loved grandkids. A quick coffee collected during the transfer and we were on our way again to the home of rugby.
The journey to the stadium had been a breeze and we were very early but so were thousands of others.


The excitement was now very high as the stadium towered above us.

Making our way to the fan zone and the big screen we were preparing to watch the Italy Scotland match being played first. Our tickets were marked Wal so we assumed they were in the Welsh end. The mascot looked great. 

We and the crowd thoroughly enjoyed the early match as Italy won. It was a very friendly atmosphere and we chatted with people around us. There were even a few Welsh fans around but not many. We scoffed a very good Cornish Pasty and made our way to our seats with a good half hour to go before kickoff.


I took a few photos of the warm up as I did not intend to take too many of the match itself.

The formalities were great, its really done so well.



The game was great and England won 48 to 7. But this blog is not about the rugby but about the day. We were a little pigged off with supporters continually interrupting our view by moving in and out of their seats to fetch drinks, food, pizzas and god knows what. I swear many were unaware a match was going off.  We didn't actually miss any of the play as when a direct line of sight was lost the big screen was good to see the action. 
We chatted continually about the game and it was obvious the rugby soul of Peter was in control of his mind and body. Actually quite a few of his comments were pretty good and his emotion was buzzing. I loved it not just the game but just being there with my big brother.

It was a huge crowd back to the station but we very efficiently and quite quickly got back to St Pancras.

Peters journey planning proved very effective and we arrived back in Sheffield at 11.00 o'clock. 

This was an incredible experience I think we both smiled incessanlty from getting out of bed in the morning to falling back into it at  midnight. A brilliant memory to last for ever. 


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