How I (nearly) got to Wembley for less than two pints

Living in Bedford my nearest football league club is MK Dons, who are going to Wembley today to play Grimsby Town in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Final.

Their average home attendance this season is somewhere between 8,000-9,000 I believe which is quite impressive for a League Two side without any ‘traditional’ support, but for their big day out were given an allocation of around 30,000 tickets.

Cue loads of locals who don’t particularly follow Franchise FC, but want to have a nice day out at Wembley. People like me (hello!).

I left it pretty late (as is my way), but on Sunday I went on the Dons website to see if there were any tickets left and what do you know there were – priced at £20, £30 and £50 each.

So I selected the “find me the best seats available” option (as they were all out of £20 tickets), and I was presented with two Club Wembley tickets (RRP £50), marked as -£1 each. Yes that’s right, I could get two £50 tickets for the rather cheaper price of -£2.

How could I turn that down? So I ordered them, and after postage and packing etc the final price was £3.80, which made me smile.

Rather naively I thought I might actually get away with it, and thought I had right up until the dreaded phone-call arrived on Wednesday afternoon to say that there was a “mix-up” with their online booking system so the tickets hadn’t actually been allocated to me – and nor would they at at -£1 each. I had a simple choice – pay the additional £104.20 and bag the tickets, or get a refund.

Contrary to what some northern observers have stated in the passed (I’m looking at you Randall), I’m not that tight, but I’m not paying £50 to go and watch the Dons. No chance.