IT doesn’t get much more exciting for a football fan than a date at Wembley.

And so far more than 20,000 Southend United devotees have signed up for tomorrow’s tea-time showdown with Wycombe Wanderers at the home of football.

And there’s been a real buzz around town in the lead up to what will hopefully be a momentous day for the Blues.

Bosses at c2c have got onboard and called it right by laying on no less than 45,000 extra seats for supporters.

And if you were in any doubt about the importance of the occasion, look no further than superfans Tony Smith and Martin Coxall... Tony’s flying in from Hong Kong, China, and Martin’s making the trek from Sydney, Australia!

There is simply no finer way to go up into a higher league in football than via a play-off final.

Football clubs tend to say they would have preferred to have gone up via automatic promotion, but don’t believe a word of it. If you could choose you’d go up the play-off way every single time as nothing beats the thrill of victory complete with all the trappings of a Wembley cup final. Especially for the fans.

Overall, the bookies have Southend as ever so slight favourites. The bookies usually call it right. So let’s hope (and pray a little) that thousands of Shrimpers will be having celebratory fun in the evening Wembley sun come tomorrow night.