The first Canaries fan to secure a Wembley seat did so from a rig in the North Sea.

And that did not go down well with his room-mate – an Ipswich Town fan.

Father-of-one Dale Patterson, 30, from Acle, works for Great Yarmouth-based Halliburton and is currently stationed on a rig about 140 miles off the Norfolk coast.

He said: 'My mate Karl Dalziel, who I share a room with out here, is an Ipswich supporter, so tensions were high that morning when I went to bed, with him even joking that he was going to come in the room when I was asleep and turn my alarm off so I missed the game. I had brought my shirt out here especially for the match as I knew I would be sitting in the TV room with Karl, so anything to annoy an Ipswich supporter is worth it,'

He went on the club website at 5.45pm and was counting the minutes to click on 'buy'.

The former Acle High School pupil said: 'I was straight in with the pick of any seat I wanted in Wembley. I changed my mind about five times selecting different seats.'

Working on the rig two weeks on, two weeks off, Mr Patterson will be catching a helicopter back to Norwich later this week, just in time for the trip to Wembley.