The rail travel to the Carling Cup Final at Cardiff on Sunday 25th February was a total disaster for the following reasons;

1. The queuing "system" at Paddington consisted of three single barrier units and a little bit of red and white tape at the platform - there was absolutely no other organisation and loads of people just bunked into the queue without any regard for those who had been there for up to 2 hours. When we spoke to the Transport Police and Station Manager they just shrugged their shoulders and refused to take ANY responsibility for the situation. They were just SO lucky that there was not a mass brawl on the station concourse!

2. The lack of any information about the delays between Newport and Cardiff before we were on a moving train denied us any opportunity to make a sensible decision - I might well have gone to a local pub or returned home to watch the match in comfort rather than spend four and a half hours on a train in each direction. I am quite certain that the fans who arrived in Cardiff at 4.30 (who were probably cutting it very fine for whatever reason) would have opted to see the match on a TV in a pub rather than being herded like cattle onto a train without being offered the chance to change their plans based on the current information which was available to the First Great Western employees.

3. Why were no extra trains scheduled? Why no direct trains? Even if only 20% of the fans were travelling by train that is some 15,000 extra “customers” most of whom were likely to be travelling from London. They just crammed as many people as they could onto each train. This meant that every aisle was crammed and some very unfortunate people were standing for the entire journey. I felt very sorry for all the non-football travellers who were trying to use the trains last Sunday! So many were trying to get onto the trains at the stations after Paddington with suitcases and then, if they did manage to actually board the train, they had absolutely no chance of getting a seat. This was very dangerous for all but especially the older passengers.

4. Why did it have to take more than 2 hours to travel the 15 miles between Newport and Cardiff? SURELY there must have been a quicker way of moving the trains between the two? If they had sent a man with a red flag walking along the track in front of the train it would have been quicker!

5. Despite appearances to the contrary, the "system" at Cardiff was barely better than the one at Paddington! We left the stadium on the final whistle but were not allowed to join the first queue to London and were directed down the next section. When they allowed the first queue into the station about twenty minutes later nobody stopped newcomers from joining the end of the first queue so they got onto the first train but we were stopped from doing this and ended up waiting from 5.05 until the SECOND London train which left at 6.15. There were a very large number of irate “customers” at Cardiff but there was absolutely no consideration shown by the railway staff to people who had already spent more than up to 6 hours getting to Cardiff and were facing another 4 hours (minimum) on the return journey!

6. Given all the problems before the match, why were there NO refreshments available on the return journey? We were very fortunate that we were in the compartment next to the guard’s van so that when the transport police and guard managed to get some refreshments at one stop we got one packet of crisps, three packets of two biscuits and one bottle of Tango between four of us! Yes, we were well and truly Tangoed! I just felt very sorry for passengers in other compartments who did not get this!

I left home at 7.45 am and finally got back at 10.45 pm. The 15 hours I spent were filled as follows;

1.5 hours - on the tube
3 hours - queuing in Paddington and Cardiff
8.5 hours - on the train
2 hours - in the stadium

Surely it must have been “cock up” but it certainly seemed like “conspiracy” as kick off approached and we still sat on the train less than 15 miles away from the stadium!

This is just a personal view of the situation and I heard of others, the fans at Southampton who were told there would be a train with 5 carriages who were then unable to board the train because there were actually only 2 carriages. They managed to get to Reading and then had to fight to get onto the train and stood for the entire three and a half hour journey from Reading to Cardiff!