The day started early for me, as I left my home near Fulham Broadway at 11 AM for the barren reaches of Finchley Road in north London. The plan was for our group of four to meet at midday at the North Star in Finchley road for a few beers, before making our way to Wembley, just up the road. I stuck to my side of it, and arrived in good time to be roundly abused by the cheerful crowd of Geordies who had taken over the pub. I was one of about ten Chelsea there, compared to a couple of hundred Geordies, but like all good ex-hooligans I refused to be intimidated by superior numbers, and went and hid in the beer garden.

By 1pm the beer garden was full of Geordies, and no sign of my so-called mates, in spite of several feverish and threatening calls to their mobiles. I had bagged one of those bench tables that are only ever found in pub gardens, and was hanging on to it grimly in the face of constant attacks from pissed Geordies demanding that I give up the seats. I was forced to make up more and more outlandish stories to keep them away, promising them that six bodybuilders with aggression problems caused by overdoses of steroids were about to take their seats, etc. They seemed to recognise a lunatic when they saw one, and confined themselves to laughing at me, which was OK by me - far better to be seen as a harmless fool than a threat.

Eventually my colleagues arrived bearing beers, and my equilibrium was restored, albeit temporarily. It all started going downhill again when a Geordie decided it would be a good idea to climb a large tree at the back of the garden. His mates moved away from the projected course of his fall, which made us laugh. I drunkenly yelled that he'd get a better view of the match from up there, which had the unfortunate effect of focussing attention on us again. The bastards then started singing "we hate cockneys and we hate cockneys". I prepared to sidle off towards the exit, only for a Biffa Bacon lookalike to shout out something along the lines of "Nee offence, meat". "None taken", says I, mentally flaying him alive with a rusty penknife. This exchange was taken by the Geordies to mean that they could safely take the piss out of us without causing offence, and they set about the task with vigour. Luckily we could only understand about one word in ten, so we were OK, except when the sentence ended in abvious question, when we were forced to laugh heartily and mumble something about may the best team win, etc.

This bullshit went on until 1:30, when we left for Wembley, somewhat bruised, but definitely unbowed. As we left, Biffa stuck his face in mine and yelled "Ye've gorra canny team there, meat, burrAlanShirra's gunnu blast a few herls in the back of your net, pet", or something along those lines. Not giving an inch, I bravely informed him in no uncertain terms that it was a definite possibility. 1-0 to Priesty..

We stocked up on beer and vodka from a shop next to Finchley Road tube, and embarked on the train to Wembley, a few minutes away. The train was packed, of course, but again the Newcastle contingent seemed to vastly outnumber Chelsea. We were wondering why this was, until we realised that most of the Geordies had come down the night before and had nothing else to do but get to Wembley early. There was ferocious chanting going on inside the carriage, mostly abuse from the Geordies directed towards us, but I kept up our end of things by opening a can of Guinness into Dogman's face, which got a belter.

We arrived at Wembley Park minutes later, and found ourselves wandering up Wembley Way towards the Twin Towers, accompanied by taunts from Newcastle fans who had lined the sides of the walkway. We were hopelessly outnumbered again, but it was early so we took a vacant section of wall and sat down to watch the spectacle with a few beers. Constant chants of "Can you hear Chelsea sing ?" from the Geordie piss artists encoraged a few bars of "Carefree" from me at top volume, which went down surprisingly well with the Geordies. It was a sunny day, and most people appeared to be in a good mood.

At 2:15 we left Wembley Way and made our way round to the turnstiles. I headed straight for the bogs and into a typical Wembley nightmare. If you've never experienced trying to have a piss at the same time as thousands of other desperate people who've been drinking beer all morning, you are a fortunate person indeed. It took ten minutes just to get to the entrance of the urinal, and having fought against a tide of empty plastic bottles floating on a sea of piss while being mercilessly shoved by glazed-eyed punters, I was sweating copiously and out of breath. As I shuffled through the entrance my eyes watered and I nearly gagged at the stench of ammonia emanating from the urinals. People were pushing from behind so hard that when I finally got to the front I had to push back against the punters behind to avoid being flattened against the urinal. Ah, the Wembley Experience..

Having narrowly survived this unpleasant episode, I returned to meet Neil at the entrance to our block, and up we went into the stadium. I've never got used to the sudden, blinding flash of colour and light as you first catch sight of the crowd. Together with the sheer size of the stadium and the pulsating atmosphere, it takes your breath away every time. We pushed past hordes of excited, flag waving Chelsea fans to our seats, which were in the corner of the ground, row 11. A more useless position would be hard to imagine, as we were on a level with the huge pitch, and could only see one goal and the corner flag with any clarity.

There was just time to get settled and take in the sight of a half black and white, half blue stadium before the players came out to a huge roar from the 50,000 fans. The 30,000 freeloaders clapped politely and carried on eating baby panda lightly sauteed in swan's blood and drinking their tiger's penis cocktails. Disappointingly, the Chelsea players were wearing blue socks instead of the usual white. Why that should be is a mystery, as Newcastle were wearing black socks, but it spoiled the immediately recognisable blue and white motif. As the players were introduced I became unpleasantly aware of my immediate neighbour, who had somehow smuggled in several cans of beer, even though he was obvously the worse for wear already. He kept staggering in to me, while keeping up a constant racist tirade against George Weah and Roberto Di Matteo. At one point I was close to slapping him, but thought better of it when I realised that it would mean a one way ticket to Wembley nick.

The match kicked off without me noticing, which is quite usual at Wembley. The crowd noise was so huge that it was impossible to hear the whistle, and the centre circle might as well have been in China, it was so far away. Soon the pattern of the game was established, and it looked to me like Newcastle were giving Chelsea a hard time of it. Chelsea were defending the goal nearest to where we were, but the combination of alcohol abuse, distance from the pitch and the piss artists in front of us made it difficult to see anything at all. The defence appeared to be doing their job well, although I can't be sure; at least no goals went in. Dyer and Solano were causing problems, and Ferguson was making his presence felt, particularly in the air. The relief when he was taken off after half an hour was palpable.

Having soaked up Newcastle's continuous pressure for twenty minutes or so, Chelsea appeared to be finding their feet. A move involving Poyet and Weah produced a run into the box from Poyet, who raced onto Weah's return pass to flick the ball over Given's head into the corner of the goal. Surprisingly, I do remember seeing the goal go in, so I was among the first in our section to get up onto my seat and dive straight off it again, injuring my ribs when the woman in front of me completely failed to catch me. No matter - I laughed and cried at the same time. The Agony and the Ecstasy. It's impossible to describe that savage feeling of joy when your team scores in a big game like this, and twice in one week is almost more than a mere mortal can take. Almost..

The Newcastle fans were stunned, which made us celebrate even more. It was payback for the abuse in the pub, and I wasted no time rubbing it in, although of course none of them could hear or even see me, but that wasn't the point. The half ended before we realised the game had restarted, and off we went for round two of the Bog Wars. Bloodied but again unbowed, we took our seats for the second half, armed with the most disgusting cheese and onion pasty I have ever tasted, although I would probably have eaten tuna and barbed wire flavour cat food by that stage. My head was pounding from dehydration and I still had to put up with the constant stream of abuse coming from my intelligent and fair minded neighbour, but in spite of these minor irritations all seemed well with the world.

Unfortunately Newcastle came out for the second half with renewed vigour, and I'm told that Ed De Goey and his defence were getting a torrid time of it, but I can't confrm that due to the fact that we were now defending the goal at the other end. For twenty minutes we had no sight of the ball whatsoever, until Shearer finally produced a cross that Chelsea couldn't defend. Robert Lee powered the ball past a static De Goey with his head and Newcastle were level. Credit to the Geordies, the roar was huge. It could have been panic stations for Chelsea, but they showed their composure by stemming the Newcastle tide, and having had a close shave at the other end Chelsea broke out a few minutes later. Miraculously, the ball came out to Weah and then Harley, not fifty yards away from us, so we saw Harley cross the ball in for Poyet to lash the ball past Given with his head. It grazed the underside of the bar, and there it was, spinning gently in the net.

We somehow knew that that was it, so the celebrations were even more uproarious and prolonged than the first lot. It took a good ten minutes for my heart to slow down enough to be able to speak in anything but a unintelligible scream. The one thing I remember is being certain that Newcastle wouldn't come back from that, so I was spared the nail-biting that usually follows, even when the ref added four extra minutes to the game. We stuck around to celebrate with the team, and all was very jolly as we sang the songs. Eventually we made our way back through the crowds of now quiet Geordies back to the station. I felt a bit sorry for them for about a nanosecond, until I realised that they wouldn't have given us a moment's consideration if the roles had been reversed.

Having survived the trip back into town with seventy thousand other people trying to do the same thing, we met up at a pub in Covent Garden for a few beers to discuss the events of the day. Apart from a dodgy moment with the bouncers, who initially refused to let us in for the crime of being Chelsea fans, we set about drinking the pub dry of Guinness. The evening ended very satisfactorily in the gutter outside Embankment tube station. I'm looking forward, if that's the right phrase for what you have to go through when making the trip to Wembley, to doing it all again in a month's time. Assuming, of course, that I'm able to get a ticket - criminally, I've missed at least two games this season, so it could be dodgy on the old "loyalty" points. That, however, will be another story. I don't wish to sound churlish, but the last time my loyalty was rewarded was by being charged full price (thirty quid) for having my view of one entire half of the pitch blocked by a floodlight in the Barcelona game on Wednesday night.

What do YOU think ? Want to add your point of view ? Here's your chance to send me some feedback. NB: Abuse from opposing fans will be laughed at and then ignored, so don't waste your time. Considered, intelligent argument, presented in the spirit of friendly rivalry guarantees a response.