For the amateur clubs in England, the road to Wembley starts in February of every year. For me, the road to Wembley started at 8:25pm the Friday evening before when me and two friends embarked on an epic cross country march from St Helens to London as the Super League era’s most successful team, St Helens, had their date with the now annual trip to the Challenge Cup final.

Confidence had been high amongst the fans the month previously as Saints chalked up 15 consecutive wins before beating Leeds Rhinos pretty comfortably in the semi final. We had dispatched the London Skolars and the Warrington Wolves at Knowsley Road (or if you must, the GPW Recruitment Stadium) before a tricky quarter final trip to the east end of Hull, where we overcame a spirited Hull KR side before setting up the semi with Leeds.

However, despite being in such amazing form, we have been playing pretty poorly as of late. The wins have still continued to flow but the performances have been a little bit scratchy at times. Everyone though (apart from me!) expected us to steamroller Hull FC, who sat second bottom of the Super League ladder as we sat clear top. I hate the amount of expectation before these sorts of games, I hate being favourites. Up until the Daniel Anderson era, we had entered so many finals as the underdog, written off and being given no chance. Now so often, particularly in our last three Challenge Cup finals, we have walked in with massive starts on the handicap for the opposition being thrown about like confetti! They do say that the bookies are rarely wrong and I suppose they were right on the last two occasions as we ultimately put away Huddersfield Giants in 2006 and the Catalans Dragons in 2007.

 But I’m a superstitious man. What if third time lucky became “third time UNlucky?” All these thoughts were bouncing around my head as I filled up a full tank of petrol in preparation for the long drive down to London. Many thoughts were bouncing around my head actually – the Saturday was the day of my birthday as well as the Challenge Cup final. Would I be getting a 24^th birthday to remember or would I be getting dispatched, tail between legs, with a monster drive back up to the industrial North? Would I keep asking myself annoying questions? Luckily, I had about three or four hours to think about it as the drive to St Helens is a long one, approximately three and a half hours if you get lucky. I don’t, often.... It’s lucky for me that I don’t mind driving, particularly when I have company. What I did mind though was the constant raft of HGV’s clogging up the middle lane and slowing the whole of the M6. From St Helens to Sandbach, I turned the air blue as my biggest motorway bugbear manifested itself time after time again. Thankfully, they were shaken off as we approached the midlands but then my relatively smooth journey was interrupted by a crash the south side of Birmingham. I wouldn’t mind but the amount of chaos such a small bump caused was totally needless. However, I took this opportunity to decide to not stop and to get straight through to London and a nice, free bed at my friend’s house. This decision was further needed when we hit more traffic and average speed cameras just outside Luton. I hate you, Luton.

I eventually limped into London at 12:45am, aging a year during the drive, and hit the pit right away. Via telling Zonerunner via text message that there was actually some sort of speed camera right above my head. I stayed in the garage (which is actually a bedroom!) and my host (who was on holiday) had, for some strange reason, seen fit to attach a speed camera directly above his head. Each to their own I guess, he is a Southerner after all! I fell asleep, my dreams haunted by Hull FC stealing the Challenge Cup from our grasp and their team coach being flashed by my new, portable speed camera as a measure of revenge by me!

 A typical cup final day for me is as follows. I normally wake up at 5:30am for a 6:20am departure on a coach. Imagine my delight then, that I was able to roll out of bed at 11:30am and head straight for the bathroom and breakfast. I get way, way too nervous on finals days; more often than not I end up being physically sick through nerves. This time however, I wolfed down my required packed lunch from my parents (superstition), leaving the crisps for the way home, (superstition) and memorising even the finest detail of my ticket before I get to the stadium (again, superstition) before leaving the house. It must have been strange for the residents of Brent as a platoon of six of us left the house and marched through the town to the Underground station, dressed in white with the red vee, commenting about how the Pizza Hut takeaway on the main road was, to quote me, “inevitably going to get raided post match.”

Thanks to London’s brilliant underground network (and it is, really, we’ve nothing like that up North) we were at Wembley in next to no time. And then the nerves really started to kick in for me. Birthdays, cup finals… all getting a bit hairy for yours truly. Thankfully by the time we got there, only an hour remained before kick off. I’m really not a fan at all of cup final days. I really have no time for the three hours in the pub before the game. I just want to get there, watch the match, celebrate, and go home. If I can’t do this, I go into the ground very early, and wrestle with my nerves, sat watching the grand sum of nothing as I try and relax. I prefer it to being stood in the pub anyway, unable to move or breathe properly. This time however was joyously different, and I relished the chance to get into the ground, sat in my seat with forty minutes left until kick off.

I went to Wembley last year for the game against the Catalans Dragons, and I had mixed thoughts. Sure, it drubs the old Wembley in terms of looks, but where has the atmosphere gone? It has totally vanished. As Saints came out to a standing ovation, I look back to 1997 and the noise was deafening. But now the sound seems to escape. I’d say it’s a minor complaint, but it isn’t, it’s a serious issue when the atmosphere has gone. I’ve always said Wembley was overhyped, and I think so even more now. Millennium Stadium > Wembley. Although I think there may be a tort somewhere that any Englishman who says that is a Communist. And must die. But I am a man of strong convictions – Wembley is not as good as the Millennium Stadium!

But enough of this, there was a game about to kick off. The temperature was around 30 degrees and the players will have known that they were in for a rough time as they were warming up. My nerves were further enhanced by more waiting, as tribute was paid via a minute’s silence to one of the most famous players of his era, Don Fox, who had died earlier in the week. Fox was a very successful player at the time, but he will be perhaps best remembered for his role in the 1968 “watersplash” Challenge Cup final, when Wakefield were beaten by Leeds 11-10 in farcically wet conditions. Having scored a try under the sticks in the last seconds of the game, Fox was all set to win the match for Wakefield only to famously slice his kick wide of the posts. And of course, he died in the week of the 40^th anniversary of this final.

But the game was to get underway after the minute’s silence, which was ruined by a drunken shout from a Hull FC fan but I don’t recall the last time there was a perfect minute’s silence at a sporting event. But my nerves eased somewhat when the hooter went and the game kicked off. However, I was at fever pitch panic inside the first two minutes when Paul Sculthorpe made a tackle and stayed down, clearly in considerable pain. Scully is one of my favourite players, but he has had some rotten, rotten luck with injuries in the past five years. I wouldn’t personally have picked him as he has had a lot of injury problems this season and although the same goes for Fozzard, I don’t think he should have been picked ahead of the prop forward. However, this was a freak injury as he made a tackle, the Hull FC player landing on his arm and popping his shoulder out. Painful, not just physically either. That is a massive psychological blow for him. And it would have been for Saints too – I was having an apoplectic fit in the stands as we were a man down off the subs bench for the entire game.

However, we stuck to our task as well and Hull rarely gave us any problems. Suddenly, after a determined start they made a few mistakes and from a scrum, Paul Wellens made a break and put Matt Gidley through a gap, and the experienced Aussie centre rattled up the opening score of the game. It was an easy try, and coming from the base of a scrum is something Richard Agar, the Hull coach will be livid about. They weren’t punished as badly as they should have been though, as Sean Long drifted his left footed kick disappointingly wide, as it was a relatively easy kick at goal.

Saints kept plugging away but didn’t punish Hull having had a lot of possession in their half. Yeaman bombed a great chance for Hull, knocking on with the line at his mercy. That would have been unfair on Saints who had been the only team in the game. We also bombed a great chance, with Ade Gardner dropping the ball in the tackle over the line when he seemed certain to score. The game ebbed and flowed, but we were always on top.

A nice thing to see was the return of Richard Horne for them, who had been out for 6 months with a career threatening neck injury. He had been given the all clear to return to competitive contact sport. He looked very ill and rather thin, and didn’t look ready to me, but on he came after 17 minutes, and he got involved straight away, running straight at James Graham. This is the equivalent of a Christian throwing himself to the lions. Horne got picked up and dropped straight to the floor. He stayed down for a few seconds but to be fair to him he got himself up and played the ball. Massive, massive hit though. However, from that set Hull forged a great chance for themselves and Todd Byrne made the break only to drop the ball over the line. This was to prove a massively important twenty seconds of the match, as from this point, with Hull retreating to the twenty metre line for the restart, James Graham made a break and passed it to Francis Meli, who skipped through three tackles and raced 70 metres to score. We had gone from being a fingertip away from being level to taking a 10-0 lead in a matter of second. One of the many reasons I love rugby league – so long as its us doing that sort of thing!

Hull looked a bit taken aback by this and only a controversial call by the referee stopped Meli scoring again in the corner from a “forward pass” from Maurie Fa’asavalu, and more controversy was to follow moments later when Meli was adjudged to have made a double movement in the process of trying to score a try. I don’t think it was a try but I don’t think it was a double movement either. I thought it was just a knock on, but there we go. Suddenly, before I knew it, half time was upon us and I was able to take a deep breath and relax. 10-0 was a great scoreline to get in at half time and get out of that sun!

15 minutes came and went, and the panic set in again. An early Hull mistake and tales of the Wembley barstaff pulling down the shutters on people in the queue the second the second half began made me laugh but just three minutes into the second half I was NOT laughing. Cunningham almost put Gidley through a gap, but Kirk Yeaman saw it coming and raced the full length of the field to score an interception try, despite the best attempts of Leon Pryce who was unable to stop him despite a late burst of pace.  My face was, allegedly “like someone has just walked into your house on Christmas Day morning and pissed on your kids” according to one of my friends. According to the other, it was my “birthday morning.” Smartarse! Danny Tickle nailed a tricky kick off the touchline and it was game on again at 10-6 despite the fact we should have had the game won at half time. Poor handling, poor officiating and poor decision making put us back in a game.

The next ten minutes or so was an arm wrestle, with neither team having the advantage, Hull coming after Saints and Saints soaking up the pressure comfortably. Suddenly, Sean Long goes through a gap and scores… Until the video referee is called in to check “possible obstruction.” It was accidental but obstruction had occurred and the try was correctly chalked off. From almost putting ourselves into a match winning position, we were suddenly behind. A very, very controversial knock on went against Paul Wellens and from the scrum, Hull burst through our right sided defence and Yeaman crashed over the line to draw Hull level. Tickle nailed the pretty difficult kick to put Hull back in front with only 18 minutes remaining. The neutrals and the Hull fans were going crazy. 12-10 to Hull.

But their joy was to be short lived as just four minutes later; Leon Pryce powerfully barged through a gap and showed great awareness to slip a pass out wide to Francis Meli, who cut inside to give Saints the lead. Meli has had a difficult season and I was delighted to see him score a double after all the stick he has had. He could feasibly have scored five tries in that match had things gone right for him. The kick was a difficult one but Sean Long kept his head and slotted it right down the hey diddle diddle to give Saints a four point lead. 16-12 to Saints. My nerves were at an all time high! However, even I was thinking that the end was in sight with just nine minutes left as Jon Wilkin charged down a Danny Washbrook kick, collected the ball and raced (as much as Jon Wilkin can race, anyway) thirty yards to touch down under the sticks. The video referee had a look at it but it was a legitimate chargedown and it had hit Wilkin in the face anyway. The try was given and at 22-12 to Saints it was game over. Even I thought that.

However, I was wrong, as with five minutes remaining Gareth Raynor, union’s lowest profile league flop, scored in the corner from a pass that was a good two foot forward. Luckily, Tickle missed the kick meaning that Hull trailed 22-16 and could best hope for a draw, surely? I had no need to worry as seconds later, we went down to the other end and Leon Pryce scored the match winning try which Long converted. At that moment I knew the cup was won and after a pathetic scuffle instigated by Jamie Thackeray, who shouldn’t have been on the pitch after his ineligible antics earlier on in the season, Mr Ganson blew his full time whistle and the hooter went, crowing Saints as champions.

I never get bored of watching us lift trophies and as Cunningham lifted the trophy I suddenly realised I had the birthday present that money can’t buy. Get in!

As promised, the Pizza Hut was hit and hit hard on the way back to my friend’s house – four large pizzas between six of us. We crowded around the TV and watched the replay back, catcalling the poor decisions and celebrating and commenting on the tries we scored. I should have been concerned about the scoreline because we really should have been out of sight by half time as we bombed way too many chances for my liking but fair play to Hull as they kept themselves in the game until the last ten minutes or so when we shifted into our higher gear and sealed the win.

After the rerun I headed for the car and a nearby petrol station where I filled up (I don’t like London petrol prices!) and decided to hit the road. I was haunted by average speed cameras until Luton (again, I hate you, Luton) but after that it was a free run home with not a crash and not a HGV in sight! I got home at half midnight able to open presents for the first time although it strictly speaking wasn’t my birthday at the time!

So, what a birthday. An epic drive, a Challenge Cup win and another epic drive. Happy birthday to me indeed!

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