FA Cup Final 2007 - The New Wembley

I was ‘lucky’ enough to get a couple of tickets for the
(Champions League 3rd place playoff) FA Cup Final on Saturday. I hadn’t been to Wembley before (not even the old one), so I thought I should make the effort to get down there.

The stadium is an impressive sight, it dominates the skyline of West London (the first time I saw the new Wembley was standing on a hill near the signing of the Magna Carta - that is outside the M25). The designers of the new stadium should be praised for keeping Wembley Way, the long walk up to the ground.

The arch gives Wembley a unique look amongst other very large grounds. Looking at the bottom of the arch to where it loops over the stadium from the ground it looks like part of a rollercoaster.

Inside the ground under the stands there are great pictures of great Wembley events, FA Cup finals, motorcycling, rugby league all ordered by date, my tickets were by the 1970s. It’s nicely done. I look forward to finding out what pictures they have from the 1920s.

Programmes inside the ground were £10, I decided against buying one, or any of the extortionately priced food. Pre-match entertainment included people hanging from hot air balloons, a Red arrow flypast (growing up on RAF bases around the UK and Europe I’m bored of these now) and a procession of players from previous FA Cup finals. I applauded Cliff Jones, Mark Hughes, Ian Rush and Big Nev. The United and Chelsea fans jovially booed any player with a tenuos (and not so tenuos) relationship against their own club.

Prince William made a short, pointless speech, Man United fans sang throughout it improving their standing with me immeasurably. Abide by Me and the anthem were sung by Lesley Garrett, Sarah Brightman and Russell Watson. Biasedly I felt it could have been done to a far higher standard by Katherine Jenkins, Charlotte Church and Bryn Terfel.

The match was dire as expected. I was struck by the amount of moaning that the players engaged in with the officials. At one point Rio Ferdinand ran up to the linesman to scream in his face (Rio wasn’t the only example of this, players from both sides were at it). It’s interesting that this sort of behaviour doesn’t really happen in the Championship and when it does it inevitably leads to a booking. This isn’t to say that the Championship is some shining example of the wonderousness of football being played in the Corinthian spirit, I just wouldn’t expect there to be such a marked difference as there was.

What was also interesting was in the space of two minutes Didier Drogba and Ronaldo both dived. Both instances were reacted to by derision from either end. I get the feeling that the only way to stop diving occuring in our game would be for both ends to react against both instances of diving.

Wembley still has the problem that a lot of new grounds have in that it has no real history. I had the same feeling when I went to the Millennium Stadium in that no games had yet been played there. When I go to the Millennium Stadium now I can remember a great Wales win over Italy and a Cardiff City playoff win as well as the other great moments from the ground (Gerrard’s long range thunderbolt and Wales winning the Six Nations). The New Wembley doesn’t yet have a history. It will soon come though as England begin playing matches there (maybe even in the finals of a World Cup or European Championships).

Personally I feel the 1980s were the glory days of the FA Cup, these were the years in which I grew up. The first FA Cup Final I remembered was the 1985 FA Cup when Norman Whiteside won the game for 10 man Manchester United in extra time. I can name all winners of the FA Cup in the 1980s, I struggle with the 90s and haven’t a clue about the last 5 years. I think it’s a great shame that we are unlikely to see an FA Cup final that doesn’t feature Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United or Chelsea in a long, long time. The days of clubs such as Ipswich Town,
Wimbledon or Coventry City winning the FA Cup are long gone and the chances of any of them making the final is a long shot now.

A review of the season.

There's plenty reviews of the season about at the moment. I felt I should write one myself. So here it goes...

It was a busy summer deep in the bowels of Ninian Park. Levels of expectation were at fever pitch, so high that they were actually tangiable. Unfortunately for experienced Ninian Park groundsman Wayne Nash the expectations became tangiable within the Grange End goalmouth! This forced the club to play its first three matches of the new Championship season away from home (Far from ideal for the club from the South Wales Valleys). Thankfully after losing 4-0 to eight-man Barnsley the expectation levels had dropped significantly leading to the Ninian Park pitch becoming playable once more.

The season began with Dave Jones very busy scouring the loan market after a terrible case of knotweed had decimated the Cardiff City dressing room. The Ninian Park trouser press in particular had taken heavy damage with Roger Johnson refusing to conduct interviews with the South Wales press while his trousers were in such a poor crumpled state.

Relations with the press were further damaged later in the month when a freak radioactive waste accident in Dinas Powys left City winger Willo Flood with half human-half rat DNA. The resulting media storm was instant with South Wales Echo chiefs doctoring pictures of the tenacious Irish midfielder by combining images of Flood with famous rats. A picture of Willo Flood in full Manchester City kit merged with 80's Breakfast TV star Roland Rat proved to be the final straw with Cardiff bosses who quickly released another "Stadium goes unconditional" story to divert attention away from the rattish Irish starlet.

The resounding defeat to the Tykes shocked the Ninian Park bigwigs who had invested millions of pounds during the summer months on actual big wigs to cement their place as bigwigs at the Ninian Park club. Steve Borley's wig (a light puse and electric blue combo) was the most impressive. It really caught the imagination of the South Wales public with the Western Mail releasing a limited edition "Steve Borley wig Commemerative Egg Cup and Spoon set" that sold out within hours of going on sale. However an S4C documentary on the wig was later cancelled before being shown after public interest in the wigs plummeted after Gavin Henson was seen wearing a cheap knock off version all to easy to get hold of west of Port Talbot.

Stay tuned for Part Two....

Actually don't. I'm rubbish at this.

I stumbled across this picture on my sojourns around the internettyweb the other week. It goes to show just how far Leeds United have fallen when they used to be lumped together with some of the best teams in the country when it came to merchandising.