| DAVE WOODS ON THE CHALLENGE CUP FINAL May 1974 was the first time I ever went to a Challenge Cup final at Wembley.
As rugby league nuts, my dad and I had escaped from a family holiday in Weston-Super-Mare to jump on a train to London.
I was seven years old and we'd gone as neutrals, but I have a vivid memory of rattling along on an underground train when a bloke from Warrington asked me who I was supporting.
"Not bothered," I told him, so he gave me a primrose and blue rosette and 50p, a fortune back then, and I became a Warrington fan for the day.
I don't remember much about the match, but can clearly recall the giddy, breathless feeling of walking up to the back of the terraces and just being overcome by the sheer size and noise of the stadium.
That was it. Challenge Cup day has been the most important in the calendar ever since.
Even as a kid I would have preferred you'd cancelled Christmas before you'd cancelled that annual day out with my dad to the exotic, far off rugby league ground with its great big family of fans from every different club.
It would take a pundit of immense courage to claim to know how this Carnegie Challenge Cup final between Huddersfield and Warrington will play out.
It's wide open and every outcome is possible.
There is no secret to the fact that Warrington have been inconsistent this season, the league table is evidence of that. Yet when Tony Smith's side bring there 'A' game to an occasion they can overrun anyone.
But Warrington will have to be good, because Huddersfield are also an exceptional side.
The Giants are ace defenders; they have the stingiest defence in Super League, just one of the areas in which new coach Nathan Brown's influence has been obvious.
Dave Woods commentates on the BBC's coverage of the Challenge Cup final on Saturday. | 
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