Not a stupid decision but here is my memories of that day. We went on a mixed coach with my Brother's football team and it was OK on the way back. No bother or anything.
We actually went as a mixed family because my Dad was a pig fan. All 3 of his Sons, including me obviously are Blades and he always said to us "You lot will never get to Wembley. In fact, I'm that confident that if you ever do, by some miracle, I'll pay for all 3 of you to go". You ought to have seen his face when the FA were pressurised into switching our Semi from Elland Road to Wembley. "Cough up Dad!" To his credit he did, he paid for the lot. Match tickets, coach fare, food, drink, the lot.
On the way down we stopped at a little market town and my Dad and me were browsing one of the stalls and the stallholder was staring at us. "What's up?" I asked him. "You 2" he replied. "What?" I asked. "He said "He's a Wednesday fan and you're a United fan and you're talking to each other". I said "yeah, he's my Dad. What do you want me to do, hate him for a day?" He looked bewildered!
Back to mistakes. When we played Crystal Palace in the Play off final, myself, my Brother and a mate decided to make a weekend of it and went to Brighton for a couple of nights before the match. Unfortunately there was some big dance festival on at the same time and we couldn't get any digs. We ended up in Worthing which for those of you that don't know it was (and might still be) God's waiting room. because of this weekend (which wasn't a mistake) we ended up driving up to Wembley from south of that there fancy London, straight through the middle of the gathering throng of Crystal Palace fans. 3 blokes dressed in United shirts crawling through traffic in a Ford Mondeo getting barracked by shitloads of Palace fans. Good job it was them. They're a bit more peace loving than Millwall but then again so was Hitler. That could have got a bit nawty but didn't. It was however, a very uncomfortable journey.
Travelling down to Bristol City when we got promoted from the old 3rd division under Bassett without a ticket was also a mistake. The coppers stopped our coach in the Avon Gorge and said to the driver "how many more behind you, about 4 or 5?" The driver said "Are you kidding, this lot are getting promoted, there must be about 45 coaches". The copper said "Bloody hell, we're not ready for that!" When we got there the away stand was full and they let us start filling up one of the stands at the side of the pitch. We thought it was full of Blades until one half of the stand started singing "City!" I was sat 2 seats from the aisle which was the segregation between the 2 sets of fans. I counted 5 police stood on the whole aisle between us and 2 of them were WPC's. Needless to say, towards the end of the match it all kicked off in the stand and we were caught up in the middle of it.
Another mistake was made by my mate when we stopped at a pub in the middle of nowhere on our way to Notts County. It was a "local" pub and he was a bit peckish. There was one sandwich on the bar under a cover and he asked if he could have it. The whole pub went silent and stared at him. It was obviously "Stan's" or somebody's sandwich. "On second thoughts, a bag of crisps will do". he bottled.
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