IT’S like England playing at Wembley.’ Not the comparison you might expect when someone’s talking about Huddersfield Choral Society at Huddersfield Town Hall.

But then my mate Linzi is a former sports reporter and a footie fan to her Man Utd scarf.

This week, the only game in town for Linzi though was the big match for which, after years of trying, she’d finally got tickets.

Now I’ve known Linzi bounce into the office after successful on-line battles to make sure of her annual pilgrimage to Glastonbury.

But whoops of delight when she bagged four seats at this year’s Choral Messiah? That was a new one.

I’d flagged up in the arts columns that the Society was for the first time putting tickets for its showpiece concerts up for sale via Kirklees booking offices and on-line, so Linzi decided this might be the year she cracked it.

And the celebrations when she did were worthy of an outing to Wembley.

She’d always wanted to hear Messiah sung by Huddersfield Choral. After all, that’s a Premier League fixture.

But she admitted that in previous years, she’d crashed out in the early stages and never made it past the knock-out ticket application rounds.

It all sounded so familiar. I grew up in a household where Messiah tickets were the Holy Grail.

I sang in many a performance of Messiah as a teenager. It was part and parcel of being a member of a church choir.

And when for the big event of our singing year we had soloists who were members of Huddersfield Choral Society we tried to lift our game for these were star players.

That was the nearest most of us ever got to the glories of Huddersfield Choral Society and its 175-plus years of Messiah tradition.

In those days it was a matter of setting the alarm clock and queuing on a cold pavement outside the Town Hall overnight if needs be to have any chance of getting those all important seats. And that’s what the most intrepid member of my family did.

At home, we all waited anxiously for the result. Did we win? Or would we be on the subs bench once more?

On those occasions when the queuing was successful, there were celebrations. I felt the excitement but didn’t quite understand why everyone was so pleased with themselves before a note had even been sung.

My elders and betters, as they liked to call themselves, decided among themselves who would get the prized ticket that year. The uncle who queued got one as of right. Sadly I was deemed too young to appreciate what was at stake.

But the sense of awe and pride which always surrounded those who did go must have rubbed off.

The first year that I was offered a ticket by the Examiner’s music critic who wanted someone else to keep an eye on a repeat of the performance he’d heard the night before, I couldn’t believe my luck.

I’d sung Messiah and heard it sung many times more. But never like that.

And I still feel like that. Huddersfield Choral’s Messiah is something special. It has power and excitement and can move you to tears.

Linzi reckoned that just talking about it made the hairs rise on the back of her neck. Well this week, she made it and her match report?

“I don’t think I will ever be the same again,” she said.

“It was awesome. I could cry just talking about it. We all felt so privileged to be there.

“Dale and I so wanted to hear Huddersfield Choral sing Messiah that we’d thought about finding out where they rehearse and standing outside to see if we could hear.

“So when we finally got tickets we couldn’t believe it.

“We fell in love with the soloist Elizabeth Llewellyn who seemed to look straight into your eyes and sing to each and everyone of us. We loved the way Martyn Brabbins didn’t point as some conductors do but gathered the singers with him as he led them through the piece.

“And when it finished, the hall erupted. Matchless”.