"He's fat, he's round, he beats his wife around (and Zola, and Hughes, etc..)"

Arriving at Wembley for a cup final featuring your team is always special, particularly as it's only happened three times (I don't count the hideous ZDS Cup) in 27 years, and although the Coca Cola Cup doesn't have the same cachet as the FA Cup, Chelsea fans seemed determined to get into the spirit of it, and the atmosphere was superb.

We arrived at about 2:30, having taken on refreshment at the excellent North Star in Finchley Road beforehand. Wembley Way was awash with red and blue, there were enormous scarves draped round the Twin Towers, and the annoying Goodyear blimp was buzzing around overhead. If you hadn't got the idea by then, you never would.

After fighting our way through the usual melee to find the right entrance, being body searched by stewards (you never did find the small bottle of vodka, did you, boys ?), and having fought our way through mounds of plastic beer bottles to get to the toilets, (which were, of course, awash with urine), we eventually emerged into the ground, to the most overwhelming sight you'd ever want to see - one entire half of the ground heaving with excited Chelsea fans, the other with the Boro lot. The main impression was of colour, though. If you've never seen it, you could never know what it's like to see that much blue, and know it's all Chelsea ! It fair made me breathless, I can tell you.

We were sixteen rows back, directly in line with the corner flag. As seats at Wembley go, they weren't bad, but it's all relative - you're too far away and too low to be able to see much, especially with countless nutters waving flags, scarves, severed limbs, etc. in front of you. Handicapped as I was, I hope I can still impart the flavour of the occasion, if not an accurate description of the football.

I was disappointed to see that Luca had decided to model his suit rather than his playing kit, but he did look very smart. The rest of the team was no surprise, it was basically the same as for the last two or three games. The only difference was the fact that Robbie Di Matteo appeared to have forgotten to put on his boots, but on closer inspection it transpired that they were pure white. The effect, with the white socks, was very strange - I don't know how much they're paying him, but they must be having a good laugh.

Looking down the ground to the Boro end, I noticed that they seemed to be waving more flags than we were, which was a bit puzzling, but generally you couldn't hear a thing from their end. I'm not saying they weren't singing, it was just that the noise from our end completely drowned out everything else. The contrast between the solid red at one end and the blue at the other was extraordinary. It makes you wonder how much the clubs rely on shirt sales for their income; there were an awful lot of Ģ40 shirts on view.

The noise reached a crescendo, which meant the game had kicked off, although I couldn't tell. The only action I saw with any clarity in the first half occurred on the right side of the Boro defence, with half-man half-beast Pearson incurring most of my wrath, although to be fair to him, he did want to win quite badly, judging by the crunching tackles he was putting in on Hughes. What was happening on the other side and at the far end was pretty well a complete mystery. There could have been a chimps' tea party going on, and I would have missed it. Correspondingly during the second half, it was Mad Frankie, Beefy and occasionally Doobs who were the only people I got to see. From what I could gather from the fleeting glances I got of the rest of it, we seemed to be more than holding our own, after a dodgy first twenty minutes.

Half time consisted of the mental rush for the bogs, with all the usual madness that results from several hundred people who have had large amounts of beer and no relief for forty-five minutes - I'll spare you the sordid details, but it was pretty grim. By the time I got back to my seat, I felt like I'd been playing as a front row forward in a Sumo rugby match. Not only that, but the second half had been going for at least ten minutes. The indignities we have to put up with in the name of football...

I'm afraid that most of the second half was a complete blur. I had once again got into the state of infantile bliss that can only occur if you follow Chelsea, and can't remember a great deal. The main thing I do remember was Franco Zola's sublime curled shot from the edge of the area that thumped off the bar with the keeper stranded. It was absolute, total magic. Other incidents sticking in my befuddled brain were the baiting of Paul Gascoigne when he was warming up behind our goal ("he's fat, he's round, he beats his wife around"), and his horrible behaviour when he eventually came on. Within minutes he'd been booked for chopping Zola, and although I couldn't see it, I was told that he also took a large chunk out of Hughes' ankle, amongst other outrages. I believe Den marked his card for him after that, but I'm afraid I can't confirm that either.

Before it seemed possible, the ninety minutes were up, and we were looking at extra time. Wildly confident, I announced to all who would listen (nobody, really) that we would score two goals in extra time. Within a couple of minutes, Den's cross was met by the huge forehead of Mad Frankie Sinclair, who has discovered that he likes scoring goals since his effort against Real Betis, and a small but good-natured riot (if you can have such a thing) went off all around us. I stuck to kissing my mates this time, you can pick up some nasty germs otherwise. It's impossible to put into words the ecstasy of scoring a goal in a cup final, so I won't try, but you can't beat it.

We sang continually from then on in, and Robbie's deciding goal sent me right over the top. I was gibbering worse than Jonathan Pearce. The last thing I remember of the match was lying on the floor looking up at the people in the olympic gallery and wondering why I'd never noticed it before. Needless to say, we stuck around for a good forty-five minutes for the celebrations, during which time the Boro end completely cleared, leaving just our end of the ground completely packed with celebrating nutters. Unfortunately all the pictures of the players with the Cup were taken on the opposite side of the pitch, and it took an age before they came over to our bit, but it was worth the wait. Frank Leboeuf definitely saw me waving at him, and looked a bit worried.

We eventually trooped up Wembley way, completely drained, but ecstatically happy, and subjected ourselves to the dehumanising shenanigans of getting a tube home at exactly the same time as 70,000 other people, another thing you have to experience to believe.

We're in Europe now no matter what, we've got another cup, and a box full of superb memories. Thanks, Chelsea and a special thanks to Luca, who sacrificed himself for the good of the team. The tactics on the day were perfect, and the team's gesture of making him collect the cup shows the spirit and loyalty that he's already instilled. He was also gracious enough to tip his hat to Ruud Gullit, and he was right to do so.