Vitality Women's FA Cup Final, Sunday 14th May
Part two of my Wembley double header this weekend saw me attend only my second ever Women's FA Cup final, and a first at the National Stadium, and it brought together two heavyweights of the Women's game in this country who were also battling for the title in the WSL too, so this had the makings of a pretty special final.
Now the last time I had attended a Women's FA Cup final was back in the 2005/06 season when Arsenal thrashed Leeds United 5-0 in front of 13,452 at Millwall's The New Den, but the game has come on leaps and bounds since those days and the final's have been staged at Wembley since the 2014-15 season, however the biggest crowd since then had only been 49,094, which was last years final when Chelsea saw off Manchester City after extra time.
Today though saw a sold out Wembley for the first time for a domestic cup final at this venue, although the actual attendance was only 77,390, which is some way short of the actual capacity (work that one out) it is still mighty impressive and was a world-record domestic crowd for the Women's game, and shows how interested people are about seeing such finals now, it was unthinkable to think 77,000 plus would watch a Women's final when I last attended one, but it's happening folks, would the crowd get a fitting game to match?
United were playing in their very first major cup final and almost had the ideal start when Leah Galton fired home after a mix up in the defence after just twenty three seconds, but the flag then went up to quash that, but United went onto dominate the opening forty five minutes against a side they had never beaten in eight previous meetings.
Millie Turner came close for United when she almost stabbed in a loose ball from a free kick, before Galton sliced an Alessia Russo low cross wide at the near post, and althougb Chelsea were way off the pace you knew they could always carve out an opportunity, and through Lauren James they could always be dangerous, and it was her who almost gave The Blues an undeserved half time lead when her looping header was superbly tipped onto the post by England's number one Mary Earps.
Chelsea, who could not have been much worse than they were in the opening half, improved after the break and so did the game as well if truth be told, and after introducing Pernille Harder as a second half substitute, it made a huge difference to the attacking prowess of Chelsea, and it was her who teed up Sam Kerr for the winning moment with just over twenty minutes remaining, Harder crossing from the right and finding the Aussie who applied the finish at the far post, a moment I did catch on camera, albeit from a distance!!!
And it proved enough for Chelsea to seal their third straight FA Cup triumph and their fifth overall, and the latest in a growing list of phenomenal achievements by Emma Hayes side, and they will hope to add one more in a few weeks time as they remain locked in a fierce battle in the WSL title with United, will be fascinating to see how that one pans out too. But at least for today, Chelsea came out on top.
Full time Chelsea 1 Manchester United 0
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