We're trying not to be sick again, and holding on for tomorrow

Morning all. Sleep well last night, did you? No, me neither. And I dare say I won’t tonight either.

Let's get the negative stuff out of the way. Firstly, giving the two best-supported teams in the National League a limited allocation for such a huge game at the 90000-capacity national stadium is mean-spirited penny-pinching by people running a game that they neither like nor understand. Lower league and non-league football in England attracts the biggest crowds for its level in Europe, probably in the world. Stop under-valuing it and stop selling us short.

Secondly, Future Ticketing are fucking useless and can get in the fucking sea. I don't care how long is left on our contract with them, they're in breach of it. Rip it up, throw it in the bin and get the lawyers to tell them to fuck off. 

I did consider queuing up at the ticket office at 8am on Saturday morning (there were people who live a sight further away than me doing, I felt a bit lazy having a lie in), but we figured that, while we expected the website to be glitchy and probably crash, we didn’t need to panic. It was 4 tickets per season ticket holder, it wasn’t going to sell out like York did, if we were patient, we’d be fine.

Then we logged on at 12 noon, were surprised to find that it was asking for email addresses and not bar code numbers, and got this message:

Apparently, the thinking was that people were likely to want to buy multiple seats together if they were buying for family and friends, and it’s sometimes been difficult to buy seats together when you can only buy on one ST at a time, and asking for emails would make it easier for couples and families with multiples STs registered to one email address. Which would have been a great idea, had it been executed by an IT company whose server isn’t two biscuit tins joined by a piece of string.

📷 Ben Dunbar. Not exactly Silicon fucking Valley is it.

Like hundreds of other people, I thought I must have done it wrong, and tried entering my barcode number, my email address all in capitals, my email address with a capital letter at the start, my email address with a space after it, shit is it the browser maybe if I try in Edge instead of Chrome, nope, nothing working. It became clear from social media that loads of people were having the same problem, it was completely random which email addresses worked and which didn’t, and, if we wanted to get 7 seats together in the block we preferred, we needed to throw some clothes on and go over the road.

(Yes, we were still in our pyjamas having breakfast at 12 noon. Not having kids is fucking brilliant.)

The atmosphere in the queue (which was snaking around the car park to Little Wembley) was actually pretty good, if nervous. The players returning to their cars from training all got a round of applause, which they seemed to really enjoy. And, naturally, none of them looked happier than Vimal Yoganathan, wearing his Brazil Pele shirt, bless ‘im.

Just a big kid who loves football, living his best life.

And, as a bonus, the dog from the York game was there, which really cheered everyone up.

As the hours wore on, though, people started to realise that we’d be all be struggling to get served before the ticket office was due to close at 4pm, and the feeling became altogether more tense. No, it wasn’t going to sell out, but we’d all made plans about where we wanted to sit, who we were getting tickets for, and everyone just wanted to get sorted so they could look forward to our big day out. It’s shit that Future Ticketing made it all so much more stressful and unpleasant than it needed to be.

Our website provider’s rank incompetence was matched by our staff’s dedication, though. The stewards, who had been going along the queue advising people to keep trying the website and telling everyone how sorry they were that there wasn’t any more the club could do, came around at 2.30pm to tell us that the ticket office was staying open until 10pm. Fair play, lads, going above and beyond. Everyone, tweet Nando’s and tell them to give the ticket office lads a chicken card, they were definitely MOTM last Saturday.

The mood visibly lifted as people could relax, knowing that they’d get sorted at some point that day. People started ordering in food on Deliveroo, and at one point there was a rumour that the bar was opening, which sadly proved to be unfounded. Living so near to the ground has lots of advantages, and Andy went home and brought back some cans. Suddenly, the world was a much brighter place.

After we’d been queuing for more than three hours, the stewards relayed the message that the website was working again. Ironically, after all that, we managed to log on, get all 7 seats in one go in the block we wanted, and buy the tickets really quickly. Get the fuck in! We could start looking forward to the final and making plans in earnest.

We were home in time to watch Celtic lose the Scottish Cup final on penalties. Ah well, can’t win ‘em all. Well done, Aberdeen. And huge congratulations to Arsenal, who pulled off a massive upset in the women’s Champions League final, beating Barcelona 1-0. I sincerely hope I get the opportunity to emulate Katie McCabe’s drunken celebrations this weekend.

We’ve had some sad news in the Latics family this week, unfortunately. Mark ‘Waddy’ Wadsworth sadly passed away on May 23rd. He was a regular in the Main Stand paddock and leaves behind a partner and a young son. We all send his family our love and condolences. A Go Fund Me has been set up to support his family, you can donate here.

We’ll all be thinking of Mark on Sunday, and I’m sure everyone will have loved ones who can’t be with them who they’ll be thinking of. I’ll be remembering Dave Stringer, whose last game was the Northampton game when we got relegated from League One. We were all so hoping that was a blip, a hangover from the previous owners, weren’t we? It’s easy to forget now, but we sold more season tickets in that first season in League Two than the last season in League One, because we really wanted the Lemsagams to succeed, and, whatever the Irrelevant Element now claim, we gave them every chance to do so.

Dave would have been appalled and furious at what happened under the last regime, but he’d be so proud of his son Chris being an OASF director and the work he’s doing to rebuild the relationship between the club and the fans. And he’d find it hilarious that Barry Owen finds Chris’ perfectly measured, reasonable, polite tweets so infuriating.

We’ve all been on quite the journey, haven’t we? At the risk of repeating myself, I genuinely thought we wouldn’t have a club to support for much longer three years ago. And now we’re taking thousands of fans to Wembley for a National League final that will have a record breaking attendance, despite the authorities’ best efforts. The Athleticos – so crucial in getting everyone buzzing for our club again – have asked people to sing ‘Frank and Judith’s Blue and White Army’ in the 31st minute on Sunday (as it’s our first trip to Wembley in 31 years). I can’t think of a better way to show our appreciation for what the Rothwell family have done for us.

📷 Kenny Brown

Whatever the result, it’s going to be an amazing day out, and we’ve all more than earned it. Worst case scenario, we lose, and the club has made a tonne of much-needed money, the supporters have had a massive lift, we’ve all seen just how great it can be when we’re playing well and the crowd’s bouncing,  we got to see Frank singing an absolutely batshit song about owls eating shrimps to an utterly bemused Fondop, and we’re in a great position to go for the title next season.

Holy fuck, imagine if we win, though.

I can’t tell you how much I’ve wanted to end a blog with these words for the whole time I’ve been writing it. I’m filling up as I’m typing them.

See you all at Wembley.

KTMFF.

Written by Arlene Finnigan