UWP Members Blog #5 - Wembley EFL Cup Final

Our fifth members blog comes from one of our Co-Chairs Claire. It's a heartwarming story of going to Wembley for the Carabou Cup Final, her dad and how her love for Newcastle United has been a lifelong passion.

When Newcastle United won the semi-final and booked their place at Wembley; it was amazing, the city was buzzing and alive with the dream of winning a cup.

Then came the challenge of getting a ticket, I was one of the lucky ones, when I found out I had a ticket I can’t explain the feeling I had, every emotion was running through me. Not only had Newcastle not been there for a long time, but I had never been there and to have my first visit to Wembley to be watching my team, the team that I have loved all my life play in a cup final. Well, it’s safe to say I was emotional 😭

Saturday 25th Feb - travel day

Well, I didn’t sleep a wink last night, everything was on my mind! What shirts do I take, what shirt to travel in, what if we win, what if we lose. I just could not switch off. I knew what shirt I was wearing for the big day, it’s a one I always planned to wear if we ever got there and I was fortunate enough to go. It’s the 95-97 home shirt because it has my dad’s nickname on the back and the number is his birthday, see I lost my dad 27 years ago. He was the one who took me to my first match and he’s the reason I fell in love with the club. So I thought it was only right that I took him along with me to watch us at Wembley, playing in a cup final and it would have been his birthday the day after the cup final. (An omen? Let us hope).

Finally, I was packed and ready to head to Bobby’s bar in Newcastle to meet Andie and Ian and jump in the car to London.

After the obligatory food and drink shop, we’re on the road to Wembley to watch our team play in the EFL cup final.

We stayed in a nice little Air BnB just outside of London and drove to Wembley early on the Sunday morning to soak up the atmosphere and get ready for the match.

Walking down Wembley Way seeing all the black and white shirts was a sight to behold, the place was buzzing with excitement.

After having a couple of drinks and meeting up with other UWP members, we made the walk to stadium, bumping into Mehrdad on the way to say hi.

Making it into the ground was a breeze and luckily for us they had escalators up to level 5. Stopping for a quick but expensive snack before walking up the remaining stairs to our seats.

Every seat had a flag on it to wave, Wor Flags did us proud yet again, everyone was singing before the game and the atmosphere was electric at the start.

The full time whistle wasn’t the result we wanted! We were all disappointed, but on reflection we have to remember for a lot of years we have been fighting relegation, with no hope of ever winning a trophy. Now we are 5th in the Premier League and have just played in a cup final, yes we didn’t win but just look at how far we have come and remember the 14 years of hurt we have had. We are in the process of building something amazing and I knew it wouldn’t happen overnight, but now we have hope, now we can dream again and I know one day this will all be a distant memory when we do get back to Europe and win a trophy.

I have supported this club all my life through good and bad (a lot of bad) and I will always love them no matter what.

We will be back and we will be stronger, we will have the success we all crave.

I love this team, this club, this city and I always will.

Newcastle United 🖤🤍