The University of Evansville boasts of the nation's top-ranked study abroad program, and this semester, five Aces women's soccer players are taking advantage of it, spending time at Harlaxton College in Grantham, England. Today's post is brought to you by Whitney Biggs and Jordin Campbell.For more on Harlaxton and UE's study abroad program, click here.
With the semester nearing its end, we took advantage of the opportunity to go and watch an international soccer match between the home country, England, and the Netherlands.
It would be our last hoorah for the semester as we all have different trips planned for remainder of the spring.
We set off for Wembley with a train ride into London, accidentally sitting in the quiet coach of the train with a full five-course meal of cold cut sandwiches while getting angry glares with every bite (oops). The trains had been delayed that day due to an incident on our route into London. Before the delays, we had been set to arrive at the stadium a whole five minutes before kick-off. Loads of time in our eyes.
After arriving to King's Cross and bickering with each other about the best line to take to get us where we needed to go in order to make kick-off. With our stop approaching we began discussing our plan of action of actually getting to the stadium as it was a good distance away. A woman on the tube overheard us and informed us that we would need to hop on the 92 bus that would take us directly to Wembley Stadium. We found the bus in a flurry, but the driver rejected our train ticket stubs due to the fact that they only take oyster cards. Figures.
So, naturally, we took off at a dead sprint in the direction of the stadium desperately trying to make kick-off. There was even another group of fans that were running alongside of us. We saw a merchandise stand that was selling game-day scarves and so we stopped to grab one. We finished our jog to the entrance of the stadium and made it to our seats at the exact moment of kick-off. Impeccable timing.
We had an awesome view of the field! After determining which team was which (harder than we thought) we enjoyed an awesome game of soccer. Vardy for England scored first off of nice combination play in the eighteen. The stadium went wild, especially the three 9-year-old English boys behind us, each with their own foam finger that found their way to the back of our heads throughout the entire game.
The Netherlands found the equalizer after earning a penalty from a handball in the box, and the teams went into the locker rooms at halftime with a draw.
The second half was underway and everyone was screaming and chanting with the hopes of their home team getting another goal. One of the little boys yelled out, "Ref, you're rubbish and you know it," which made all of us burst out laughing.
Late into the second half, England's defense left a man open and conceded an easy goal. As the game came to a close, we all decided that it would probably be best to leave a couple of minutes early to beat the crowds. We were very wrong in thinking this. The moment we got out of the stadium we were surrounded by people and they were all going to the same place, the train station. We felt like cattle being herded. There were police officers lining the street with signs that said go/wait. When we got about 50 feet to the stairs of the station, the police stopped us and we had to wait for the wave in front of us to get far enough ahead to not cause chaos. The moment they let us go, we sprinted up the stairs yelling things like "God bless America" and "For Sparta!" To say the least, we weren't keeping a low profile of being Americans.
We finally got on the tube and were on our way back to King's Cross to get on another train that would take us back to Grantham and finally home sweet home, Harlaxton. Of course, we had to take some pictures at Platform 9 and 3/4 as we felt that it was necessary. All in all, it was a great experience and game despite England losing. Definitely one for the books.
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