A BOLTON Wanderers fan is hoping for a more joyous occasion when he returns to Wembley Stadium today.

Andy Walton was last at the London ground to watch BWFC's 5-0 demolition by Stoke City in the FA Cup semi-final in 2011.

Today, he will take to the pitch with 63 other football fans to sing Abide With Me before the FA Cup Final clash between Arsenal and Aston Villa.

Mr Walton, aged 33, was one of more than 1,300 people who applied to form the Songs of Praise FA Cup Fans choir.

The former Canon Slade School pupil, whose parents live in Astley Bridge, said: "I'm as ready as I can be.

"I'm not really nervous, I've done quite a lot of singing and stuff before.

"I'm just looking forward to it. I just saw it online and applied."

Each fan represents one of the 64 teams who made it to this year’s third round of the FA Cup and they will join The Band of The Brigade of Gurkhas to perform in front of almost 90,000 people.

A mix of men and women, with ages ranging from early 20s up to 100-years-old, each submitted stories to reflect their personal memories and passion of the cup from every level of the game.

Mr Walton, who has lived in London for the past eight years and works for The Centre for Theology and Community, said: "I read some of the other stories and people had very heart-rending ones such as they had watched the cup final with a loved one who had since died.

"Mine was a bit tongue-in-cheek.

"It was just about last time Wanderers were at Wembley we got beat 5-0. It was a bit of a disaster.

"There were quite a lot of unhappy people."

He hopes today's performance will go some way to righting the wrong of 2011.

Mr Walton, who has also followed his team in Europe, said: "One of the things about this, a lot of my friends talk about the Reading (Division One play-off) final in '95 but I didn't go to that, I was a bit too young.

"The only two times I've been was when we lost to Watford in '99 and lost to Stoke in 2011."