By Stefan Ratchford

CHALLENGE Cup Final day is special wherever you’re from.

Where I grew up in Wigan it was all anyone talked about but even people like Gids (Kurt Gidley) and Ashton (Sims) will tell you they used to get up in the early hours to watch the Challenge Cup Final.

Even just playing in the final for Warrington against Leeds in 2012 was an honour, but to walk up those steps and lift the trophy above my head was the stuff dreams are made of. It’s something that will stay with me for life.

Warrington Guardian:

Waking up that day, I just remember being nervous pretty much from minute one.

I was rooming with Ryan Atkins and he’d been there before so was a bit more relaxed but it was my first final so the nerves were definitely there.

We went down for a bit of breakfast to try to relax as much as possible. I was trying not to let the nervous energy build up too much.

I came back to the room to find Ryan in the bath with his music on, which was a new one for me.

I tried to keep it as normal as possible. We had a bit of down time before we left for the stadium so I went down to have a laugh and a joke with the lads and a bit of a stretch before watching some TV in the room.

There was a selection of stuff that the nutrition team had set up for our pre-match meal but I went for my normal beans on toast – it’s not too heavy but it gets me enough carbs, protein and energy.

Getting ready to leave back in the room was when the excitement started to kick in. I was brushing my teeth thinking ‘this is the last time I’ll brush my teeth before playing at Wembley’, it was a bizarre situation but it was very exciting.

We were due to leave for the stadium at 12pm so I remember getting down to the lobby at about 20 to. Some of the lads were talking about football results trying to avoid the game as much as possible.

We got on the bus and it was pretty quiet, a lot of people react to that situation in different ways.

I like to have a bit of a joke around but lots of the guys were staying quiet and getting their focus on the job ahead.

We’d had a training session at Wembley the day before, seeing it empty was special enough but when you catch your first sight of it on match day you think to yourself ‘I can’t believe I’m going there to play’.

When you start seeing shirts on their way to the game it just builds the excitement and there were thousands of fans outside when we actually got there, singing and cheering as the coach came past.

It made the hairs on my neck stand up.

I can’t quite remember the last thing Tony said to us but I know it will have been something along the lines of “enjoy the day, enjoy the occasion and have no regrets about what you do”. I was too nervous to take anything in at the time, it was my first big final so I was trying my best to focus on what I wanted to do.

We got out of the changing rooms quite early and I remember being stood in the tunnel and hearing Abide With Me being sung. As we came out, the fireworks went off and there was just a wall of noise and a sea of primrose and blue at one end of the place. Seeing that is something I will never forget, my legs were like jelly but I just thought “right, time to go”.

Warrington Guardian:

We were defending our line at one point and I saw this big flash. I thought it was from one of the big screens but about 20 seconds later the heavens just opened and unleashed the worst rain I can remember. It bounced it down for a good 20 minutes, I was like a drowned rat going in at half time but when we came back out for the second half it was bright sunshine again!

I’d played a couple of games at full-back that year but I was in the centres that day, a couple of minutes into the second half Brett Hodgson got a high tackle from Kylie Leuluai and was down. I was getting myself ready in my head to switch to full back but thankfully Hodgo got up and from there we nicked a couple of tries.

Warrington Guardian:

I was so focused on getting the job done that I didn’t really get chance to enjoy the occasion but we were in a comfortable position with about 15 minutes to go so I started to take in the atmosphere a bit more without switching off!

Getting my hands on the trophy was the most amazing feeling, it’s the stuff you dream of as a kid whether you grow up in England or on the other side of the world. I’ve got the medal at home, I look at it from time to time and it says “Challenge Cup winner” on it. It’s something that can never be taken away.

Warrington Guardian: wembley_game_250812_mb050.jpg

Stefan Ratchford was talking to Matt Turner