Continuing with my theme of “What have you been
doing with yourself during the long summer months since Racing Club’s last game
of last season?” this week I’ll thrill you with observations of my visits to the
FA Trophy Final at Villa Park on Sunday 23rd May and the FA’s “Summer
Tournament” in early June.
I’ll miss the FA Trophy Finals when they return to the newly refurbished Wembley stadium. Villa Park has been a temporary home for the non-league show piece event for the last 3 years and, in my opinion at least, a classy venue in the heart of the country makes a lot more sense than a trek to the northern suburbs of London which can be a major inconvenience for a lot more clubs. Of course the word “Wemb-er-lee” does fit a lot more easily into terrace chants but are we non-league folk really all so desperate to have a day trip to our National Stadium? If Racing club got anywhere near getting to the FA Vase Final, would you really care which top class stadium your big day was going to be held at?
The other thing that says to me that Wembley is an inappropriate venue for the major non-league finals was the attendance at this year’s FA Trophy Final : 6,635! Now I readily accept that neither Hednesford Town nor Canvey Island rank amongst the most strongly supported clubs on the non-league circuit but even if the attendance had been 25,000 it would have been rather lost in a 75,000 all seater stadium. And given that Hednesford (Cannock) is relatively close to Villa Park, what would the attendance have been if the Hednesford supporters had had to travel 120 miles instead of just 20?
The match itself was a corker with the lead changing hands twice and the underdogs (Hednesford) coming out on top courtesy of an own goal and then a late winner form long-time servant Chris Brindley. The reward for Barry Powell, Hednesford’s Manager was the sack a few days later as a consequence of Hednesford’s failure to get into the Conference structure. With Chris Brindley taking up the reigns and based on the evidence of this performance by a seemingly young side one would expect to see Hednesford challenging for promotion this season.
My final two matches of the season saw trips to the City of Manchester Stadium, new home of Manchester City for the England warm-up fixtures against Japan and Iceland. The Stadium is the one used for the recent Commonwealth Games although, in the unlikely event that you attended the Games, you would probably not recognise the Stadium now as it is now fully enclosed and the running track has been removed by the insertion of a new lower tier of seats. The Stadium is located in Eastlands, a particularly run down industrial wasteland to the east of Manchester city centre. In common with nearly all new Stadiums which are are allegedly built to take advantage of motorway links, public transport and the demand for on-location parking, the City of Manchester Stadium seems to disregard all 3! That said, City’s new home is certainly more modern than Maine Road and not having to park in Moss Side is a plus.
June 1st and the Far East came to east Manchester with the visit of Japan. The atmosphere within the stadium was reminiscent of World Cup 2002 (not that I went to Japan but I’m sure it is what it would have been like!) with literally thousands of Japanese supporters in all areas of the stadium. The English public must have a bit of a soft spot for the Japanese as it is rare to see England fans so tolerant of opposition supporters openly supporting their team in England fan areas. Isn’t that what football is supposed to be like? The match itself finished 1-1 and the tabloid headline writers got their wish as the Japanese scorer was named Ono, “Oh No!” The match against Iceland was even better with a 6-1 drubbing being dished out to “there are no mugs in international football anymore” opposition. And so on to Euro 2004…..
Keep the faith!
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