This is a bizarre story, now that I review it again.

Because I could not get credentialed for the Summer Olympics in the way I have for 14 Olympiads before this one — with an actual “E” (press) credential — I became worried about getting into events at London 2012.

Specifically, into UAE soccer events at London 2012.

That led to a late search for tickets to any of the UAE soccer team’s three games here, and the discovery that for 3,010 dirhams — about $820 (!) — I could purchase from an agency in Dubai a seat in a luxury box at Wembley Stadium for the UAE-Team Great Britain match. Among other UAE supporters.

I would be writing a game story by the end of the night, but I could in theory speak to UAE citizens/dwellers/fans, and finally I actually got approval from the newspaper for this, provided I write a story the next day about spending a match among people with money or connections or both.

And that story is here.

First, a little confession. The luxury box was nice, and it was spacious and it removed those of us in it far from the madding crowd, but I would expect a similar box at say, Texas Stadium, to be far more nicely appointed. More stuff. More gadgets. Certainly, TVs for the seats outside so we could see the live feed.

But there I was, and the menu was impressive, and the three stadium staff assigned to our box (you can see them at the back end of the box, in the photo below) couldn’t have been nicer or more solicitous, and they seemed OK with the idea of a reporter asking questions (journalists make most wealthy people nervous), and they actually helped me with information, and I did watch a very fine match there.

I wasn’t able to sit down at the table and use the silver and crystal (see below) as I ate dinner because 1) I was too nervous to eat real food (journos on deadline can relate to this) and because 2)  I was banging out some “A matter”/running at halftime of the second game, when people were eating whatever it was they ordered. (Some of the dishes are mentioned in the linked story.)

Dinner was served late because most of the 13 people in the 20-seat box were Muslims, including four Emirati men, and I believe most of them were fasting, because of Ramadan, and the wait staff told me dinner would be served at 9:02 p.m., which presumably was sundown in northwest London.

What I did, to keep from getting light-headed, was chow down on some of the meat mini-pies set out a bit earlier, and then I had a bit of dessert after the game was over. A scone, I suppose it was.

The downside of a luxury box up at the upper end of the stadium is that you really can’t see the game very well, and if I didn’t know the UAE players by silhouettes, I would have had a heck of a time determining, say, Omar Abdulrahman (little guy, big hair, wearing No. 15) from Amer Abdulrahman (little guy, big hair, wearing No. 5).

Soccer fans just refuse to watch a game with binoculars — like it has never occurred to most of them and if it has to any of the rest, they find the idea repellent, because you can’t see all 22 men moving at once, which means you are a bad fan … but I’d like to be able to study a celebration, say, at 20 times magnitude, to be able to pick out numbers or see expressions that the niggardly replays on Wembley’s two inadequate Jumbotrons would never show.

(And I am reminded again of Texas Stadium, and the masses of TV’s aggregated over the field, which are so vivid that people tend to watch the TVs and not the game, and I could stand a little of that over here, where you are expected to have seen every nuance of every important play in real time, especially the controversial plays, because they are not replayed.)

So, I sat there, and enjoyed the early game a bit, Senegal beating Uruguay in an upset, and the UAE-GB game, which I thought might be a 3-0, 4-0 kinda pasting was actually 1-1 in the 60th minute, when Rashid Essa scored, and at that point I began writing my first lead (two were to follow) about the Emiratis winning a point from the hosts at freakin’ Wembley with 80,000 GB fans in the house, and 15 Premier League players suited up, and how crazy was that?

Then the Britons scored two quick goals, and I was (mercifully) able to concentrate on writing a “GB wins, but UAE makes ’em sweat” gamer, and dictate it to the office back in Abu Dhabi.

I can see getting used to luxury boxes, because you don’t have someone’s elbows in your ribs, and you don’t worry about someone behind you spilling beer on you, and the luxury box people are friendly and perhaps more interesting and they are chilled out because, after all, they are in a luxury box.

(Two of the friendly guys are above, Syed and Murtaza, both of them bankers, and they seemed like pretty good eggs, given the reps of bankers these days. And the white glare behind them is the field, and my inadequate camera trying to deal with the light and, yes, I did just think about the aphorism that a bad carpenter blames his tools.)

I have been in plenty of press boxes at plenty of stadiums, but I never before had reported a game from a luxury box, at an Olympics, and I don’t suppose I ever will again, which is fine by me.