Wembley Stadium: Chelsea 0-1 Leicester City

Chelsea 0-1 Leicester City – FA Cup Final 2021

After over a year without fans, the FA and the UK Government chose the FA Cup final as part of their Event Research Programme (ERP) to bring spectators back to large events safely.

After a remarkable performance against Southampton in the Semi Finals, Leicester City reached their first FA Cup final in 52 years.

With an allocation of under 7,000 tickets, Adrian and I (Ross) never thought we would come close to getting tickets... how wrong were we!

We booked out tickets and attempted to book our mandatory coach ticket to get us to Wembley however later found the club only booked enough coaches for half the allocation... The club confirmed we could travel by car, saving ourselves £45 each.

As part of the research programme, we were required to complete a consent form and were required to have a negative COVID test which we both passed with flying colours.

The big day finally arrived, we left Adrian's house just after 12pm and headed down the M1 from Lutterworth in an attempt to avoid the convoy of coaches leaving Leicester.

We got to the capital in plenty of time parking in Kingsbury and walked the 2.5 mile journey to Wembley.

As we approached the famous arch, you could finally sense a football atmosphere once again which we've all longed for.

Since our last visit to Wembley, apartment blocks have been built around the stadium adding to the already towering concrete jungle that has ruined Wembley.

The City faithful was in full force with many fans outside singing and chanting with excitement.

We made our way to the first check point where our tickets, COVID test resultd and ID were checked before we were allowed within the Wembley Stadium outer perimeter.

We took a slow walk around the stadium taking in the view across the capital before making our way round to our turnstile where queues had already formed with further security checks at the turnstiles.

Due to limited availability, Adrian was one row above me which was the closest two seats I could find together. Each supporter had a seat empty on either side of them. Underneath each seat was a Leicester City branding bag containing a scarf, a blue jester hat, a rosette, a clap banner, a message from the chairman and a pin badge to mark the occasion.

As kick off approached, the atmosphere continued to ramp up with the traditional rendition of Abide with Me and the National Anthem.

When the sides entered the field of play, they were greeted with a chorus of cheers and large flames surround the pitch.

The game itself like many recent finals wasn’t the best for the neutral but for the committed Leicester City supporter a day in their life that they will never forget, both being at the game itself as part of the Events Research Programme and seeing the club win the FA Cup for the first time at the fifth time of asking.

Our last appearance at this showpiece event was 52 years ago so it’s not a trip the club have made very often and I suppose the only down side was the fact that due to the COVID-19 pandemic which has hit the world only 6,000 fans could travel down the M1.

The attendance of just under 22,000 was the biggest gate for an event in the UK since ironically a Premier League game at the King Power Stadium played on a Monday night in March 2020. Truly an astonishing last 12 months for football with games being played without fans. The game has proved how vital fans are in stadiums.

Leicester’s win was courtesy of a goal to remember from Youri Tielemans, a goal worthy of winning any final, a rocket from 25 yards, but whenever you are in finals you need your goalkeeper to perform when required and a bit of luck, City had both!

In goal the great Dane Kasper Schmeichel who made two remarkable saves in the second half to deny former City player Ben Chilwell with a header and then a terrific left foot shot from Mason Mount which diving full length to his left managed to stick out a hand and push away for a corner.

You also sometimes need the gods to smile on you and VAR came to City’s rescue in the dying minutes catching Chilwell offside by no more than a few millimetres in a passage of play which ultimately saw the ball deflect off City stalwart Wes Morgan into the net.

The cheers that greeted the VAR decision of offside by the City fans were probably louder than the goal itself.

Chelsea will look at this as an opportunity lost, they were the slight favourites and they controlled possession for large periods but couldn’t take the few chances they created.

It was a cagey first half, you felt it would be either a mistake or something special that would win it and that proved to be the right.

City defended superbly Fofana, Soyuncu and young Luke Thomas were outstanding. The squad is not the biggest, missing out through injury were Barnes and Justin. Maddison still not fit to play 90 mins and Evans was risked, a decision that backfired as he came off after half an hour.

Despite all the hurdles Leicester dug in defended and took their chance well and the eleven out there plus subs will go down in club folklore.

Five years after winning the Premier League we finally win the world’s most famous cup competition; it’s only taken 137 years!

The domestic cups may not have the importance to the so called elite but for provisional community-based clubs like Leicester City it means everything. They have made the City and County proud and delighted a nation. A penny for the thoughts of former City player Ben Chilwell…

Up the City!!!

Following the wild Leicester City celebrations after their maiden FA Cup final win, we made our way to the exits and dashed towards Wembley Park Station where we queued to get onto the platform.

It wasn't long before we were on the platform and getting onto an uncrowded train to the next station, Kingsbury.

When we arrived at Kingsbury, we ran back to the car in the rain before heading northbound onto the M1.

The journey home did encounter a car accident which delayed us by half an hour however nothing could spoil our day and will be a day that lives long in the memory.

Leicester City winners of the 2021 FA Cup!

Leicester City 1-2 Manchester United

Onto the third match in four days following our visits to West Ham United and Grimsby Town. Wembley Stadium was the venue for the FA Community Shield (or for those who still know it as the Charity Shield) between Premier League champions Leicester City and FA Cup winners Manchester United. Leicester City have one the Charity Shield once in 1971 after beating Liverpool 1-0 at Filbert Street (in that year City were invited after winning Division 2). This meant City went into this match with a 100% win record in the Charity Shield. As for Manchester United, they are the most successful team in the competition winning it 16 times and sharing it 4 times. The newly appointed Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho would’ve been keen to win his first trophy at the earliest opportunity. After a couple of defeats in the new International Champions Cup to PSG and Barcelona, Claudio Ranieri will be keen for his side to get back to winning ways ahead of the opening seasons game against Hull City the week after.

Adrian and I (Ross) attended with our family friend Barry on this occasion.

We left from Adrian's house at 9am making our journey southbound on the M1 amongst fellow City supporters heading towards the capital.

We had a brief toilet stop at a busy Toddington services before continuing our journey to Kingsbury.

We first parked the car on Melbury Road and walked to Kingsbury Underground station. We then made the journey on the tube up to Queensbury to have lunch and a drink at Morrisons Supermarket café. Afterwards we hopped back onto the tube this time heading beyond Kingsbury towards Wembley Park.

A sea of blue and white shirts could be seen flowing up Wembley Way from the top of the steps at Wembley Park. There was a great atmosphere building amongst the Leicester City supporters whilst walking up Wembley Way probably due to their long awaited 16 years since their last visit.

We found a patch of grass where we sat down and enjoyed the sunshine. Barry attended the 1966 World Cup Final and told us he almost missed the kick off as he fell asleep on a nearby patch of grass. Ironically, it was 50 years and a week to the day of that famous final and he was once again lying on the grass outside Wembley Stadium!

After half an hour or so (determined not to miss this kick off!), we decided to walk around the stadium to take a few photos and wait for the turnstiles to open. We noticed the official merchandise booth were only selling Manchester United memorabilia outside the Leicester City end of the ground for those Man U fans who are never near enough to Old Trafford to visit their club shop. That tells its own story!

When the turnstiles opened at 2pm, we went inside to absorb the pre match atmosphere (which somehow put Adrian to sleep!).

Wembley Stadium was opened in 2007, on the site of the original Wembley Stadium, which was demolished from 2002–2003. Wembley Stadium is a UEFA category four stadium. With 90,000 seats it is the second largest stadium in Europe and the largest stadium in the United Kingdom. It is owned by The Football Association. Designed by HOK Sport and Foster and Partners, it includes a partially retractable roof and the 134-metre-high (440 ft) Wembley Arch. The stadium was built by Australian firm Multiplex at a cost of £798 million. The all-seater stadium is based around a bowl design with a capacity of 90,000, protected from the elements by a sliding roof that does not completely enclose it. It can also be adapted as an athletic stadium by erecting a temporary platform over the lowest tier of seating. The stadium's signature feature is a circular section lattice arch of 7 m (23 ft) internal diameter with a 315 m (1,033 ft) span, erected some 22° off true, and rising to 133 m (436 ft). It supports all the weight of the north roof and 60% of the weight of the retractable roof on the southern side. The archway is the world's longest unsupported roof structure. A "platform system" has been designed to convert the stadium for athletics use, but its use would decrease the stadium's capacity to approximately 60,000.

In the heat of August, it would be fair to say, not a bad game but neither side at the peak of their powers.

City could have opened the scoring, Japanese striker Okazaki having a shot deflected for a corner and the subsequent dead ball kick saw him glance a header against the crossbar.

However, a superb piece of individualism lead to the first goal and in particular FA Cup final hero Jesse Lingard of Manchester Utd.

He has come a long way since a disappointing loan spell at Leicester City several seasons ago and he tricked his way past several City challenges to lift the ball over Schmeichel to give the favourites the lead. Wonderful solo goal, City will be disappointed about the defending.

In the second half, the substitutions started and certainly City's record summer purchase Ahmed Musa is already gaining popularity.

He will claim part assist in the equaliser. His pacy run down the left put Utd on the back foot, his through ball was cut out by Fellaini, but the Belgian’s attempted pass back lacked the required pace and Jamie Vardy latched onto the loose ball and rounded De Gea and it was 1-1.

City looked likely to score again, their pace was causing concern however various half chances came to nothing, the best chance saw Musa head over when it looked easier to score.

With the substitutes freshening things up, Utd started to reassert themselves and in the latter stages it was them that looked more likely to score. Ibrahimovic already had a shot at goal cleared away by Drinkwater, but moments later the veteran Swede powered home a header from a right wing cross from Valencia to win the game for Manchester Utd. He hadn’t really been involved but he was in the right place at the right time beating Morgan in the air for 2-1.

Leicester mounted a couple of late attacks, cries of handball in the penalty area but nothing given as Mourinho's new team held on for yet another Community Shield victory.

Ranieri, Leicester’s manager felt they had done enough to deserve the penalty shootout, he may have had a point, however clinical finishing at vital stages of the game handed the victory to the 2016 FA Cup winners over the Premier League champions.

After the match, we left amongst the masses of disappointed City supporters heading up Wembley Way back to the tube station. We hopped onto the northbound Jubilee line train and got off at Kingsbury and walked back to the car.

What we didn't know was how bad the traffic would be coming out of Stanmore. It took us over an hour to travel 3 miles from where we parked on Melbury Road to the London Road/A5 Stonegrove roundabout in Stanmore. When we were finally through, we had to contend with the slow moving M1 traffic which we later found out to have been caused by a small van broken down in the middle of a four lane stretch of motorway forcing all the traffic into two lanes. The journey got slightly better even though we were sticking to an average speed of 50 mph due to average speed cameras. We stopped at a busy Newport Pagnell services for a quick toilet break before continuing our journey back to the Midlands. We eventually got back to Adrian's for 10:30pm.

Overall it was great to see Leicester City at the new Wembley Stadium for the first time since 2000 but sadly the outcome of the match wasn’t what we had hoped for.

England 2-0 Switzerland

Adrian and I (Ross) decided to have a half day at work and leaving at 1:30pm heading southbound once again down the M1.

Once we got through the tiresome average speed restrictions, we came off the M1 this time heading towards Queensbury tube station not too far away from Barnet’s ground, The Hive.

We parked on Mollison Way, walked passed Queensbury tube station and went to Morrisons café to eat our dinner.

Once we finished our dinner, we got onto the tube from Queensbury heading southbound to Wembley Park.

Upon our arrival, we walked down the steps from the station and up Wembley Way where we were greeted by a large group of Switzerland supporters chanting all the way up to the stadium.

When we got to the stadium, we decided to go to the main entrance to see the VIP’s arrive including Darren Anderton, Paul Elliot, Emile Heskey and Mark Hughes.

Once we finished, we decided to walk around the stadium soaking up the atmosphere and taking photos.

When we finished walking around the stadium and purchased our overpriced programme, we decided to go in to the amazement that we were not being searched on this occasion! Inside, we were told by various stewards at the bottom of each escalator where to go (even though it seemed so obvious!).

International football over the years and England in particular have never ceased to disappoint me.

Constant hope constant under achievement. For Ross this was his first international at Wembley for me (Adrian) my first since a friendly against Brazil in 1981.

The Euro qualifying group which England are in, is anything but interesting, Switzerland clearly the only real challenge and they look set to finish an expected 2nd behind England.

England qualified for the finals with a win over minnows San Marino on Saturday, so the two main interests in this contest were, Roy Hodgson facing a country he used to manage and would Wayne Rooney score his 50th international goal for England and become the country's leading goal scorer.

Hodgson’s plans were thrown slightly within 30 seconds when Fabian Delph limped off with a pulled hamstring, Ross Barkley of Everton replacing him.

Chances were minimal, England probably had the better, a Cahill header pushed away by the keeper Sommer, Rooney opening up his body shooting wide and the dependable James Milner forcing the Swiss goalkeeper into a sharp save after an astute pass by the captain, Rooney.

Switzerland were technically good in possession, plenty of good link up play with Gokkan Inler very much at the heart of the Switzerland midfield.

Some nice quick passing opened England up just prior to half time but Drmic fired well wide but the best chance for the Swiss fell to the new Stoke City recruit Shaqiri who was denied by a brave piece of keeping by Joe Hart diving at his feet to deny him a chance.

In the second half both Oxlade Chamberlain and Sterling appeared to get more joy in the wide areas, Sterling in particular combining well with the England left back Luke Shaw. Despite that though, very few clear cuts chances, a header by Rooney plus a shot which tested the keeper, at the other end with Hart saving an effort at his near post following a corner.

The game came to life thanks to a substitution, Tottenham’s Harry Kane came on and moments later England were in the lead, the sub firing home a left foot shot from the right hand side of the penalty area after an excellent cut back by the excellent Shaw.

But the moment the crowd of 75,751 will remember came in the 84th minute. The quick feet of Sterling drew a foul in the box from Klose and England were awarded a penalty.

Step up one man!

Manchester United and England captain Wayne Rooney.

And yes to the relief of every Englishman, he scored his penalty firing past Sommer who despite guessing correctly could do nothing about stopping the powerful shot.

In doing so Rooney set a new record of international goals for England beating the great Bobby Charlton.

A standing ovation followed from the crowd, the achievement lifting the atmosphere which to that point had been very quiet.

Switzerland will feel a little disappointed they had nothing to show for some nice approach work but the clinical finishing of Harry Kane and the penalty by Rooney clinched victory for England.

As expected England win the group with two games still to play.

Now can the team make an impression at a tournament next year? It's something past sides have failed to do in recent years, remember the golden generation?

Rooney has threatened to be a star at a Euro Championship and World Cup, can he now deliver in France 2016 and score consistently against the best in Europe and become a legend by leading a bright hungry England team to glory?

After the match, we made a dash down the many steps from the top tiers (no escalators this time!). When we reached the bottom, we made a dash down Wembley Way amongst those who left earlier or even left before Rooney’s goal! When we got closer to the station, stewards and police were controlling the congestion on Wembley Way by stopping the crowd letting it ease off at the station as trains came and went. By 9:50pm, we were on the platform and our northbound train was arriving. Only a 10-15 minute journey before we were back at the car on the way to the M1.

With traffic becoming more congested on the M1 due to roadworks, and based on our recent experience on the way back from Barnet, we decided to come off the M1 before Dunstable staying on A5 up to Lutterworth and then getting back on the M1 towards Leicester. We were home by 12:10am.

Bristol Rovers 3-1 Shrewsbury Town

Wembley Stadium is the home of English Football. A trip Adrian and I were looking forward too for a while. Getting a tube from Stanmore to go and see Arsenal's Highbury Stadium (Half demolished) and Emirates Stadium in the morning and from there to Wembley Stadium. We chose to go and see Bristol Rovers verses Shrewsbury Town in a 3-1 win to Bristol. We sat in the Shrewsbury Town end. Wembley Stadium is the biggest stadium in Britain costing a total of £737m to construct and taking seven years to build, Wembley is a trip well worth going, especially if it’s your own team. A replacement of the old Twin Towers is "The Arch" which is hung above the arena at a height of 133 metres which can be seen across London. The bowl like structure has three tiers, one of which is for Season Ticket holders at Wembley. At the foot of the structure are nets to avoid any pitch invasions but in the case of an emergency, they can be opened from each stair way so there will be no problems like the disastrous Hillsborough or Bradford Fire which cost people’s lives. There are also two big video screens at either end of the stadium behind the goals.

Wembley Stadium

Thursday, 20 May 2021

Chelsea 0-1 Leicester City - FA Cup Final 2021

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