Chief Constable Dave Watt from the Metropolitan Police told Stinky Ponky "As with all major events these days there will be opportunists at Wembley who will be trying to sell fake badgers for large amounts of money to those who are desperate enough to risk it. My message to those who are travelling to Wembley without a badger, hoping to pick one up at the game, is 'don't bother.'

"Earlier today we intercepted a Ford Transit full of resprayed ferrets heading towards the stadium. They weren't even particularly badgerish. This was an amateur attempt at badger faking, but there are professionals out there who will be producing very convincing replica badgers, often from cats. Although these copy badgers would easily fool the man in the street - or even a woman in a chip shop or children at an under 18's disco - staff at the Wembley Badgerama will not accept them. They have very sophisticated equipment that will be able to recognise fluctuations in rectal temperature, as well as other tell tale signs."

We spoke to Mike Howe from the National Society of Badgerists (NSB) who told us "Sadly badger jacking is on the rise these days. Cheap badgerising kits have started to arive from Eastern Europe, helping badger jackers to produce convincing badgers quite easily using techniques such as tread frimping, witch warping and dawpish-free popperisation. The effect on real badgerists has been devastating.

"We see upwards of 18 fake badgers - or 'sprunks' - a week now, and at big events like today's match we expect to see a whole lot more. Badgerists simply can't compete in a market flooded with fakes. In some ways I feel sorry for those who will buy a fake badger for twice the normal cost tonight and then find their world collapsing around their ears as the Badgerama turns them away.