This is your complete guide to the FA Cup Final.
How to get tickets, how to get here, where to eat, what to do around the stadium and how to
have the most amazing time in one of the biggest games of football on the planet.
The Football Association Cup Final, more commonly known as the FA Cup,
is the first & oldest football cup competition in the world. Every year,
over 700 teams play each other in this knockout tournament, until there are only two teams left.
These two, contest the final here at Wembley stadium in London, the home of English football.
It’s one of the hottest tickets of the year. To us, this is our Superbowl and most football
fans spend their entire lives having never been to a final.
This year is the 142nd running of the completion,
and the two teams this year are current Premier League Champions: Manchester City.
And my favourite football club – Manchester United. Even though we’re cross-town rivals,
and have been sworn enemies since 1881 – neither team has played each other in the FA Cup final.
This is the first time in 142 years, that we’ll duke it out for the cup.
TICKETS
Okay, so you’re going to need some tickets. As mentioned before, this is the hottest ticket
in town and they’re hard to get. A certain number of tickets, roughly 35,000 of them,
are issued to both teams. Most of the time you’ll need to be a member or at least have
had a previous purchasing history with that team in order to secure reasonably priced tickets.
The booking procedure is the same as usual for that particularly club.
Prices range from £30 to £250 for the standard seats.
Some of the bigger clubs, like at Manchester United & Manchester City – require you to at
least be a season ticket holder and have made purchases to all the cup games before being
eligible to buy tickets. They might also operate a ballot system, where
all ticket applications are picked at random, and it’s pot-luck if you get a ticket or not.
But if you’re not affiliated with either team, the only real way of getting tickets as a neutral fan,
is by going on the Wembley website and buying a corporate hospitality ticket.
This includes food, drink, and entertainment options. But they’re not exactly cheap – and
you’ll definitely be paying through your nose. Prices range from £250 to several thousand pounds.
You’re still better off doing that, than buying tickets on a 3rd party website, of which I
absolutely guarantee that they’ll inflate the prices to eye watering amounts, and there’s
no guarantee that the ticket you receive is real, so please avoid these sites at all costs.
GETTING HERE
So you’ve managed to secure your tickets, now you need to actually get here.
Wembley stadium is located North-West of central London and most people make an
entire weekend out of it, they book a hotel in London and simply use the underground system,
aka the Tube in and out of Wembley Stadium. The nearest tube station is Wembley Park on
the Jubilee and Metropolitan lines, located north of the stadium. Alternatively use Wembley Central.
If you’re arriving from a different part of the country and you want to use the trains,
the nearest train stations are Wembley Stadium & Wembley Central,
and these are located south-west of the stadium. On this particular day,
the trains were on strike aka not running, so it’s forced every Manchester resident to drive here.
So if you are driving here, they have on-site car parks but you need
to book and pay for that that way in advance, as spaces are limited.
Sadly, there’s not much in the way of free on-street parking anywhere near the stadium.
And given that the traffic is terrible around there anyway, a lot of people (myself included)
park outside central London all-together, and just get some form of public transport into Wembley.
AROUND THE STADIUM Right, you’re here. But what’s there to do?
If you want to eat, drink or shop – there’s plenty of options here around Wembley stadium. The first
thing you’ll notice is that it’s incredibly well signposted, with plenty of helpful maps and signs
telling you where you are and where to go – so you’ll never get lost anywhere around the here.
Most of the time, they have fan zones for each team.
You’ll need to show a match ticket to get in and they usually have plenty of places to buy a pint,
get food, buy some commemorative merchandise and listen to some banging tunes from a DJ.
This is a pretty cool part of the FA Cup, you get to mingle and talk to other fans
and especially on a nice day like today, pretty good for building up atmosphere.
The pubs around Wembley stadium are usually designated to specific teams, and they’ll make
it obvious which supporters are welcome. Damn, this is a City bar today – I love that place.
North of the stadium, you’ve got a few takeaways,
iconic pubs such as the Crock of Gold and The Torch and supermarkets, so whether you want
to drink in a pub or just get some cheap beers from the ASDA supermarket, you can do it here.
West of the stadium, you’ll find London Designer Outlet – where you could technically go shopping
before the match, but unless you plan on wearing that bright pink bikini you just bought right now,
you won’t be able to bring that into the stadium with you, and you’ll need to stick it in a bag
drop facility. More on that later. There’s a few eateries here too and plenty of places to drink.
South West of the stadium near Wembley Central you’ll find mainly fast-food joints,
I recommend Aunt Jenny’s here if you like Caribbean food.
And to the east - well, there’s nothing. It’s mainly a construction site,
except for a Costco – just in case you want to get a hotdog and drink for £1.50?!
Have a walk around the stadium, but you’ll find that most of it is guarded by police
and they’ll try and funnel you in directions that you don’t want to go, so bear that in mind.
GETTING IN
Now that you’ve killed off some time, it’s time to go inside. But be warned, the queues to get in are
pretty hefty and they advise that you arrive at your designated entrance at a specific time slot,
so you’re not still standing in a queue outside whilst the match is starting.
They operate a strict no-bag policy,
so if you bring in anything that’s larger than an A4 sheet of paper – you’ll be refused entry.
You can drop off your bags at one of the many bag drop facilities around the stadium at a charge.
You’ll be security checked, airport style before you’ll need to scan your digital
ticket at the turnstile. Once you scan in, walk through and you inside the stadium.
As this is the home of football, it’s a massive stadium with massive concourses.
If you’re in the cheap seats, your concourses are rather quite basic.
If you’re at Club Wembley, it’s a little bit nicer.
And if you’re in the suites, it’s very nice indeed!
The food prices, well it’s stadium pricing obviously, a little on the high side,
but it’s not super exorbitant compared to quite a lot of the other places I’ve been to.
My advice is to enter the stadium about an hour before kick-off,
to get yourself settled, watch the teams warm up and soak up the pre-match atmosphere.
And during a final, you usually get freebies on your seat – this year it’s a flag and a bucket
hat, so that’s pretty cool But there’s usually a few people stealing other people’s stuff,
probably to sell on eBay, and that’s not so cool. And this is what it sounds like on the concourses.
THE MATCH Once the anthem has finished playing (and
yes Liverpool fans, we Manchester folk do sing the anthem), you know it’s about to get feisty.
My very reasonably priced seat for just £30, thank you Manchester United, is right above
the TV screen. If you get it for some stupidly low price, you know that it’s probably going to
be a restricted view seat and these railings in front of me hinders my view. But honestly,
I’m in the front row, I’m pretty happy with this. As the match starts, the chanting revs up to ear
splitting decibels and … hang on a minute have they just scored?!
Bloody hell that was about 14 seconds into the game. 1-0 City already. United weren't favourites
to win this game anyway, and that's even more of a long shot now. The signs are ominous. It's pretty
obvious that City are in complete control, and any attacks that United try seem to come to nothing.
As you can tell from the unimpressed look on my face; United aren't really playing all that well.
David De Gea suffers an injury so that both teams can get a water break.
This is just a strategic move; he's not actually injured, but we definitely need a
spark from somewhere. And hang on a minute, was that just handball? The referee has to take a
look at that. Yep, it's handball. It's a penalty to United. Come on, Bruno, level it up for us.
It's 1-1, and United fans have sprung back into life.
It's a nice atmosphere when the fans are chanting, the flares are burning, and the players respond
accordingly. And we finish the first half the better of the two teams, in my opinion.
It's half time, and we've got a game on our hands.
By the way, if you are in the cheap seats, you'll notice that most people like to stand. And when
people can't see, they end up blocking up the stairways, and the staff do nothing about this,
so this is just a warning if you're sat right at the top of the stadium like I am.
During the second half, City started the brighter of the two.
And just like that, it's 2-1 City. They've restored their lead, and their quality is
shining through at the moment. They're Premier League champions for a reason,
and one of the reasons is that they don't panic. They've got everything pretty much under control,
and even though United are trying their best to try and mount attacks, quite a lot
of them are falling short. Some of them are missing completely, and some are so close.
Right it's almost game over. There's four minutes of added time left and United need to mount one
last attack. …
and that's a shame. Our fans know what's coming next, so they head to the exit early.
Some stay in defiant chanting, but most of them are headed towards the exit.
And that's your lot ladies and gentlemen. Manchester City win the FA Cup.
If you stick around, watch the tradition of the winning team hoisting up the trophy. But as a fan
of the losing team, we make our own tradition by running away from the stadium as fast as possible.
When you leave Wembley Stadium. It's incredibly disorienting, so please remember the way you came
and walk that way back. It saves you from getting lost in the crowd, and if you're
taking forms of public transport, it'll be busy and you'll be packed in like sardines.
Okay Ninh, I'm sold. What do I need to do? Well, you need to come here to Wembley Stadium.
I've mentioned all the ways that you can obtain tickets, and once again,
please stay away from ticket touts and third-party websites because they'll just rip you off.
I've also mentioned all the ways to get here. But please understand that no way
is absolutely perfect and it'll busy and packed whichever method you choose.
If you're looking for a place to stay, either stay in central London and make a trip of it, or there
are hotels located around the stadium itself. But for FA Cup finals weekend, it's not cheap.
The ticket might be the cheapest thing you actually buy. If you include food, drinks,
transport, and hotel stays, it quickly adds up, so please budget accordingly.
Is there anything else I need to know? Yes, there's a Public Space Protection
Order enforced around Wembley Stadium. So drinking on the street, urinating in public,
lighting up flares, or anything like that will lead to fines and arrest. This is enforced
strictly by the police. If you want to chant it, that's on you, but you have been warned.
I've mentioned the bag policy before but people
always forget so try not to bring it bag with you at all where possible.
Try and get here early to beat the traffic and if you don't want to be caught up in the crowds,
try and leave the stadium as late as possible if time allows. Be sure to take your sweet
time have a meal and a drink somewhere around the stadium and just take it easy.
Most likely all the bad traffic will have gone by the time you set off from Wembley.
Everywhere around Wembley has step-free disability access, so if you've got mobility
issues you'll be well catered for here. If you have enjoyed this video or found
it helpful please be sure to like share and subscribe. Comment on that comment section below,
and if you've got any other bucket list ideas, you know what to do, tweet them at me. If I
get enough suggestions I'll make a video about it. But guys thanks very much for watching and
we'll see you in the next episode right Ninh Ly - www.ninh.co.uk - @NinhLyUK