Road to Wembley- COMPLETE!!

WE DID IT!! After a couple of failed attempts since the 19/20 season (which are also documented on this blog), myself and my parter Ben finally completed our ‘Road to Wembley’ quest: attending a match from each round of the Women’s FA Cup! And what an incredible journey- taking in games from grass roots in the early rounds right through to fully professional set ups in the later stages and everything in between. The FA Cup provided us with a real cross section of the football this country has to offer, which is the beauty of the competition and why it’s the best competition in football (I say that as fact)! Each match day experience was enriching in it’s own right, whether that was in front of 273 spectators as Kiveton Park Ladies took on SJR Worksop Women in the Second Round Qualifying or in front of 18,000+ fans at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium at Semi Final stage.

2534 was our total miles travelled (house to stadium by car), the longest round trip being 418 miles (Crawley Town FC for Brighton vs Man Utd) and the nearest at just 20 miles was Kiveton. We saw 45 goals scored and number of photos taken was far too many to count!

The final at Wembley was incredible- the crowd of 76,082 was the highest attended game I have ever watched and the atmosphere was great! It rounded off our FA Cup journey extremely well. A strong Manchester United side won 4-0 against (touted underdogs and first time finalists) Tottenham Hotspur, with their efforts rewarding them the clubs’ first piece of major silverware.

The FA Cup will start again in a few months, so if you’re willing to take on the challenge, then get ready! If you’re so inclined, you can see all the games we attended by clicking the #RoadToWembley filter. See you at a game then, yes?!