The Wanderer - issue 119 - http://www.wwisc.co.uk/

There were some familiar faces present who had just finished training and media
commitments ahead of the first leg. As you’d expect, Gareth was his usual charismatic
self and asked if we were ready for Friday. Never mind us, what about him? He replied
with all the confidence and guts of a man whose side were about to blow the opposition
out of the water in their own back yard… Enough of the chit-chat about kicking a football
around though - we had a serious job of hanging up some flags to do. Some of the flags
were familiar: the iconic ‘Wycombe till I die 1884’ banner had been displayed at Villa
Park and Stamford Bridge but was making its home debut, whilst I recalled first seeing
the ‘We are the old Bucks Boys’ flag on a cliff by the sea in Torquay in May 2014…
Some flags were poignant reminders of fans who weren’t able to experience the playoffs
in any guise. Others possessed familiar names, some were humorous (‘Vegan. Leader.
Legend.’ was my personal favourite) and others did the proverbial “faeces-housing” (this
is a family friendly fanzine). Chairboys Central’s ‘1.74 - The Magic Number’ simply had to
take centre stage, not that a certain owner of a posh club would be watching of course...
There was a beauty to the diversity on show, demonstrating the many families and
individuals from all over the world that make up our fanbase.
After the path to Wembley was secured, the call to action to get the flags to Wembley
came and we didn’t need to be asked twice. Naturally they needed to be taken down
first and Nick’s request for assistance saw me greet him with ‘No thanks, that sounds
boring. See you at Wembley’, but it was in jest of course and another lunchtime trip to
Adams Park was required. Taking them down and flinging them in the back of Nick’s car
proved to be much easier than putting them up. The decision to also grab the ‘Wild
Thing’ flag was a last minute decision.
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