To Wembley or not to Wembley

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Wembley Semis

  • Yes

    Votes: 20 12.2%

  • No

    Votes: 144 87.8%
  • Total voters
    164
sheff_blade90

sheff_blade90

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on FA Cup semi debate of wembley being the venue , For me Wembley is a great place once your there, i loved going yesterday. & for players it's a huge achievement to play at wembley. but it wouldve made more sense to be at Old Trafford considering where 2 teams are from

semi final venues should be more fluid . as wembley makes sense not for southern teams per se but id say their 19 teams below in premier & championship find wembley Easier.

but to defend FA it does come really to the north/south stadium devide as for me you need a 60,000 stadium minimum because any less all doing is your swapping all the annoyance we have had over travel for a far worse problem tickets because lets say for arguments sake villa park or elland rd that ive seen mentioned regularly. based on wembley get 12 -13,000 tickets & can imagine the outrage that only half the Season Ticket holders can get a ticket. thats at our level your talking 1/3 or 1/4 for the major teams

but it comes to the north/south stadium devide there isnt much choice as in the south you have 5 60,000+ stadia they could use Emirates, Spurs, Old Olympic Stadium, Wembley, Millennium

in the North we have 1 60,000+ stadia they could use Old Trafford. what do you do happens if its 2 london sides & Man utd v northern team. as you could use Etihad at a push but your risking ticket annoyance
 

It’s a magnificent national stadium and aren’t the semifinals there to continue paying for its build? I’d sooner have gone to Villa Park yesterday, but can’t get very worked up about going to Wembley.

Granted, I live an hour from London on the train and fully understand why those travelling from further away have stronger opinions on the matter.
 
It was nice for younger fans to experience it that probably wasn’t born or too young to remember the last time we were there but it’s an expensive do.

New fans would probably never see us at Wembley if they wasn’t hosted there unless we got to a play off final.
 
SwissBlade said:
Semi finals should be at the most suitable ground for both teams based on location and size appropriate for the fan bases of both sides… that May end up being Wembley, perhaps for our semi that Villa Park would’ve been more suited.

Looked like we didn’t sell all our tickets
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Neither side did
 
John Street West Terrace said:
Neither side did
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It appears that Man City sold slightly fewer than we did. There were 2 entire blocks on the Upper Tier, on the Man City side of the segregation, that were covered by enormous flags. Presumably, the club arranged to do that.

On our side of the segregation, there was one unsold block and one that was only partially sold. Our block wasn’t dressed with a big flag, though.
 
LS16Blade said:
It appears that Man City sold slightly fewer than we did. There were 2 entire blocks on the Upper Tier, on the Man City side of the segregation, that were covered by enormous flags. Presumably, the club arranged to do that.

On our side of the segregation, there was one unsold block and one that was only partially sold. Our block wasn’t dressed with a big flag, though.
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I noticed that and now on Twitter there is a tweet getting loads of retweets asking that question and highlighting empty seats on the Blades end.
 
It makes no difference how many or how few tickets we received.

We wouldn't have sold out if we'd only got 20,000 because of the moronic one ticket per person and 500 loyalty points shit that the club is too fucking stupid to realise doesn't work

If we'd only got 20,000 tickets the restrictions would just start at a higher level and by the last two days they'd still have got 5000 left

If we only got 10,000 the qualifying criteria would be even higher and they'd be 2000 left on the last day

Then on the last day the ticket office would be shut
 
LS16Blade said:
It appears that Man City sold slightly fewer than we did. There were 2 entire blocks on the Upper Tier, on the Man City side of the segregation, that were covered by enormous flags. Presumably, the club arranged to do that.

On our side of the segregation, there was one unsold block and one that was only partially sold. Our block wasn’t dressed with a big flag, though.
Click to expand...

Made me smile today reading a pisstaking thread on a generic football page.

As well as several fans of clubs taking the piss who can only dream of getting our average crowds, there was two City fans who had come up with some nonsense about how they had 39,000 fans there compared to our 30,000.

The gift of sight was all that was needed to show that as bollocks.
 
Nah, that Wembley isn't for semi's. Should be at a neutral ground easily accessible to bpth sets of fans.

And tickets should certainly be cheaper!
 

Does anyone know how many we officially took?
There looked to be a fair few empty seats to the left hand side, but those of us who were there did the boys proud.
 
Fuck that.

It's shit, if we have to go it has to be a one time only deal, if we had reached the final I'd have stayed at home after that fucking trip down for the semi.
 
I said some weeks ago that I’d be more interested in a semi final at a neutral venue.

However, I really think there was a fairly unique lack of demand for yesterday’s game at Wembley.
We’ve been to plenty of FA cup semi-finals: 5 in the last 30 years. They’re not that special for us. We’ve also been to 4(?) playoff finals (I genuinely lose count). Most of them were at Wembley, and some argue that’s often a bigger game than an fa cup semi-final. Almost all of us have been to Wembley a lot, and it isn’t that great.

Compare that to Blackburn: one fa cup semi final in, what, 50 years? They were DESPERATE to get to Wembley and would have been scrambling for tickets.

We’re also focused on promotion, confidently aiming to be playing teams like Man City every week, rather than this being the be-all and end-all of our season.
For some other clubs, a semi-final in the cup would have been the biggest thing in their club’s recent history by a mile.

The fact we were playing Man City also gave us no chance of winning, so we all knew we were going to watch a defeat; if we’d been playing someone else, there might have been more appetite for it from some. So most clubs at our level would perhaps hardly have played at Wembley before, and most clubs above our level would maybe have expected a higher possibility of getting a result.

On the other side, Man City play at Wembley every year, and yesterday was the least important Wembley match of the last, maybe, 15 times they’d all been to. It wasn’t even their second biggest game in a period of 1 week! They also knew it would be a routine training-game style of match - turning up and winning. It’s no wonder many of them weren’t bothered about going either.

Yesterday’s game should have been at Old Trafford. Big enough, near enough, cheap enough, and would have been ideal. However, I think that’s probably a pretty unique situation (for all the reasons above). I think almost every other team in the league would probably have really wanted it at Wembley - even though they believe that takes the shine off the final a bit.

For me? No semi-final should ever be at Wembley. But for other clubs and their fans, I can see why they appreciate getting to go there.
 
SwissBlade said:
perhaps for our semi that Villa Park would’ve been more suited.
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we wouldve only got 16,000 tickets & then your in the territory of season ticket holders missing out

& on the ticket bit. it was purely money im sure we sold out our 30-65 area but whoever thought of £80 - 120 needs sacking
 
The fucking whinging if we had the semi at old trafford for this game (only other English stadium that could handle the capacity) 😭😭😭😭😭

Assuming they chose OT as a location, based on location and capacity. City fans would have a meltdown. If you read their forum, they said they hated having to pay for wembley but at least it wasn’t OT (“ the swamp “). If we had pretty much sold out our OT allocation, there’d be massive speculation about how there weren’t enough seats. “There’s a huge stadium that the FA own, sitting there empty, whilst me and my half deaf uncle can’t get a ticket for the semi because we were fingering each other when the tickets went on sale for the tiny old trafford, rah rah rah”

Think of the speculation this time. People guessed shit based on nothing and then absolutely rage about it.

Basically, the FA cannot win in terms of fan happiness, so they choose the option that suits them the best. We will hate on them regardless, so they may as well get as much £ to compensate for listening to dumb cunts raging at them

I think the real issue is pricing, not the location. Papa John’s cup pricing and even subsidised club coaches would make a big difference

Night
 
100% part time blade said:
I said some weeks ago that I’d be more interested in a semi final at a neutral venue.

However, I really think there was a fairly unique lack of demand for yesterday’s game at Wembley.
We’ve been to plenty of FA cup semi-finals: 5 in the last 30 years. They’re not that special for us. We’ve also been to 4(?) playoff finals (I genuinely lose count). Most of them were at Wembley, and some argue that’s often a bigger game than an fa cup semi-final. Almost all of us have been to Wembley a lot, and it isn’t that great.

Compare that to Blackburn: one fa cup semi final in, what, 50 years? They were DESPERATE to get to Wembley and would have been scrambling for tickets.

We’re also focused on promotion, confidently aiming to be playing teams like Man City every week, rather than this being the be-all and end-all of our season.
For some other clubs, a semi-final in the cup would have been the biggest thing in their club’s recent history by a mile.

The fact we were playing Man City also gave us no chance of winning, so we all knew we were going to watch a defeat; if we’d been playing someone else, there might have been more appetite for it from some. So most clubs at our level would perhaps hardly have played at Wembley before, and most clubs above our level would maybe have expected a higher possibility of getting a result.

On the other side, Man City play at Wembley every year, and yesterday was the least important Wembley match of the last, maybe, 15 times they’d all been to. It wasn’t even their second biggest game in a period of 1 week! They also knew it would be a routine training-game style of match - turning up and winning. It’s no wonder many of them weren’t bothered about going either.

Yesterday’s game should have been at Old Trafford. Big enough, near enough, cheap enough, and would have been ideal. However, I think that’s probably a pretty unique situation (for all the reasons above). I think almost every other team in the league would probably have really wanted it at Wembley - even though they believe that takes the shine off the final a bit.

For me? No semi-final should ever be at Wembley. But for other clubs and their fans, I can see why they appreciate getting to go there.
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Yes, but if Blackburn had made it to Wembley Blackburn Rovers would have allowed any fan with Blackburn Rovers somewhere deep in their pysche to attend, and also with their family and friends.

In fact 91 clubs would have done, only one doesn't. I wonder who that could be ?
 
sheff_blade90 said:
on FA Cup semi debate of wembley being the venue , For me Wembley is a great place once your there, i loved going yesterday. & for players it's a huge achievement to play at wembley. but it wouldve made more sense to be at Old Trafford considering where 2 teams are from

semi final venues should be more fluid . as wembley makes sense not for southern teams per se but id say their 19 teams below in premier & championship find wembley Easier.

but to defend FA it does come really to the north/south stadium devide as for me you need a 60,000 stadium minimum because any less all doing is your swapping all the annoyance we have had over travel for a far worse problem tickets because lets say for arguments sake villa park or elland rd that ive seen mentioned regularly. based on wembley get 12 -13,000 tickets & can imagine the outrage that only half the Season Ticket holders can get a ticket. thats at our level your talking 1/3 or 1/4 for the major teams

but it comes to the north/south stadium devide there isnt much choice as in the south you have 5 60,000+ stadia they could use Emirates, Spurs, Old Olympic Stadium, Wembley, Millennium

in the North we have 1 60,000+ stadia they could use Old Trafford. what do you do happens if its 2 london sides & Man utd v northern team. as you could use Etihad at a push but your risking ticket annoyance
Click to expand...
I’ve only just realised that Man C’s ground is only 53,400. Would have thought it was a lot bigger than that!
 
To be honest, it is embarassing that a club of our size, and on the brink of getting promoted to the Prem, had so many empty seats at Wembley.
In saying that, it’s everyone's right to choose, and I’m certainly not having a go at anyone who chose not to go.
I’m guessing that there were many and varied reasons for it, ranging from the undoubted cost issues, in a cost of living crisis, accessibility reasons, and the just plain couldn’t be arsed it’s on the telly, and we’ll get beat anyway.Wherever the non attenders fitted in on that spectrum, I’m not bothered.
For me one of the reasons was the utterly ridiculous way the club decided to sell the semi final tickets. The tickets were sold late, and it was made very difficult for people to sit together, with friends who weren’t season ticket holders, and for the less regular visitors to the Lane to get theretickets.
I’m a season ticket holder, and usually go to the Blades Wembley appearanceswith the Mrs and friends, who are blades, but not regular attendees. And this time it was impossible to get them tickets until only a matter of days before the game. By then it was too late, as decisions about trains staying over had to be made much earlier than that.
In the end, I went down with a mate who was City, but not a regular,who got his ticket within days of getting to the semi.
I could easily have taken another 3 or 4 blades,but couldn't due to the way the tickets were sold.I’m sure there were others in the same boat.
It was obvious from the start that United would easily be able to accomodate all its season ticket holders and attendees who go regularly and would also need the support of friends and family and the more casual Lane attendees to sell out their allocation. Mr Bettis however doesn’t seem to be able to do maths very well.
In short we restricted access to tickets to a market, that wasn’t big enough to sell them in.Very clever, and that was obvious right at the beginning. Indeed, many were saying this on this forum, right from the start.I’m not advocating a free for all by the way, but surely there was a better way of doing it.
You dropped a clanger Mr Bettis, and need to learn from your mistake.
I have written to him on this matter, but don’t hold out much hope of ever getting a reply.
If I do, I will of course publish it on here.
 
If it had been held at Old Trafford, Manchester City would have been in the ManUtd home side. That is almost indecent (imagine our neighbours in the home end at Bramall Lane?)
 
corner_flag said:
If it had been held at Old Trafford, Manchester City would have been in the ManUtd home side. That is almost indecent (imagine our neighbours in the home end at Bramall Lane?)
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it is a neutral venue. for that day. surely man city can swallow it for 1 day, must have gone to old trafford for england game or other sporting event at some point. Barcelona & Athletico Madrid have played Copa Del Rey finals at the Bernabau. Liverpool & Arsenal have played at Old trafford. man utd played at Maine Road multiple times, Spurs have played at Highbury

Cappy said:
The fucking whinging if we had the semi at old trafford for this game (only other English stadium that could handle the capacity) 😭😭😭😭😭

Assuming they chose OT as a location, based on location and capacity. City fans would have a meltdown. If you read their forum, they said they hated having to pay for wembley but at least it wasn’t OT (“ the swamp “). If we had pretty much sold out our OT allocation, there’d be massive speculation about how there weren’t enough seats. “There’s a huge stadium that the FA own, sitting there empty, whilst me and my half deaf uncle can’t get a ticket for the semi because we were fingering each other when the tickets went on sale for the tiny old trafford, rah rah rah”

Think of the speculation this time. People guessed shit based on nothing and then absolutely rage about it.

Basically, the FA cannot win in terms of fan happiness, so they choose the option that suits them the best. We will hate on them regardless, so they may as well get as much £ to compensate for listening to dumb cunts raging at them

I think the real issue is pricing, not the location. Papa John’s cup pricing and even subsidised club coaches would make a big difference

Night
Click to expand...
thats some great points the prices categories were ridiculous £65 shouldve been the top tier but it was the middle tier & i was thinking that this this tough call because fans will never been satisfied & complain about something they just arent the capacities available in the north to statify both travel & tickets. as i was saying above it is a neutral venue. for that day. surely man city can swallow it for 1 day, must have gone to old trafford for england game or other sporting event at some point
 
When they rebuilt it, it should have been on a brownfield site, smack next to a motorway junction, and a mainline train station plus trams into nearest city centre.
 

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