I’m a lucky boy.
While I didn’t have the best relationship with my dad, I was very fortunate in some respects.
Here’s one:
Through his job, he was given two tickets to every event at Wembley (Stadium, Arena and Conference Centre), except the FA Cup final, when he was given one.
My brother wasn’t into football much so when I discovered this gold mine, I was all over it, probably not as much as I should’ve been but I didn’t want to be greedy.
I ended up going to six Cup finals and a replay: ’84 – Watford’s first, ’85, ’86, ’88 (not ’87 because it was too painful after we’d been knocked out by Tottenham in the semis), ’89 (Everton/Liverpool, just after Hillsborough) and 1990 and subsequent replay.
Then when the supply of tickets stopped (or I stopped asking), I started working at Wembley – concerts, football, rugby, the Nelson Mandela tribute, the Freddie Mercury tribute, which I loved. WWF, which I didn’t.
And now Watford are back for this year’s final, the annual, cultural occasion that means more to me than any other.
Choosing a piece of music that I wanted played at my dad’s funeral in 2008 was easy, even as an atheist.
>>>Playlist<<<
