A humdinger of a women's football final

Last night, I headed to Wembley Stadium to watch the women's football final between Japan and USA - who'd contested last year's World Cup final, which Japan won on penalties.

The view you see when you emerge from Wembley Park tube station really must be as exciting as that from any station in the world...

 

Then you have the tradition walk down Wembley Way - or Olympic Way as it's officially known, because it led to the old stadium which was the main venue for the 1948 Olympics (the walkway was apparently built by German prisoners of war).

I'd love to know where the scarf factories are where they can knock up these scarves so quickly (the semi finals were only the other day)

With USA having made it to every women's football final since it was introduced to the Olympics, an awful lot of Americans had clearly taken a chance and bought tickets. There were stars and stripes everywhere, and "USA!" was booming out around the stadium, which was crammed with more than 80,000 people. There were lots of Japan fans too. And a great atmosphere.

Wembley did look nice with all its London 2012 decor.

Probably the best water bottle filling facility I've seen at any 2012 venue - it was the first aid office, with a line of medical staff passing the bottles down and filling them from the tap. That's pretty indicative of the kind of the unexpectedly helpful spirit that's characterised these Games.

As I say, it was pretty packed in there. A record for a women's football match in this country, in fact.

The game itself was a real humdinger - the two teams were very evenly matched, with both hitting the woodwork and both playing some terrific football. In the end USA won 2-1, but Japan (who I was cheering for) fought them close right to the end.

I'll leave you with a photo of my £5.70 half-time Lincolnshire sausage.
Pricey, but tasty.

Only one more event to go - the handball tomorrow (unless I can *finally* win my battle to get some hockey tickets). Can't believe it's almost over. What an amazing couple of weeks.