It is the Semi Final of
the FA Cup 2013/14 and we have travelled 1567 miles and spent £370 on tickets
to get to this point. It has been an
epic journey that has travelled as far north as Workington; spent a lot of time
in the midlands with Stourbridge and moved as far south as London for the
Arsenal game at the Emirates.
Now we are travelling a further 10.6 miles to....
Wembley Stadium
I have written to all
the clubs during the Giant Killing Adventure and received help from many of the
lower league teams. Marine FC were the
first to mention us on their Website and this favour was repeated by Curzon
Ashton, Workington, Stourbridge and Biggleswade. Since then, from Stevenage onwards no club
apart from Arsenal has replied back to us (Arsenal’s reply was a generic
response about ticket availability). We
have covered 8 months of football, 12 Rounds, and 14 games to get this far. So
let’s talk about tickets for the semi-final.
Without being a gold or platinum member of Arsenal it wasn’t possible to
buy a ticket (even though I am a member which cost me £36). Wigan only has
availability for away season ticket holders and neither club has helped our
journey - even though we were part of the initial 78 fans that turned up on the
rainy windy Saturday afternoon back on 17 August 2013 for the extra-preliminary
round.
However, there is no
doom and gloom because previous blog guest Tim Webster (Curzon V Lancaster;
Stevenage V Stourbridge: Doncaster V Stevenage and Stevenage V Everton) has
come up trumps. His company has offered
free tickets to its workers and he has got hold of some to keep the Giant
Killing Adventure going strong. It’s an
ironic state that we have had to be saved by corporate tickets after coming all
this way – but I suppose that is the nature of the FA Cup.
We already know about
Arsenal, so let’s talk about Wigan. If
you read blog post number 1 back on 13 August 2013 we explained how Wigan
Athletic (the latics) are the current holders of the FA Cup after their 1-0
Victory over Manchester City last May 2013.
We talked about Wigan as a town, so let’s talk about Wigan football. The
Club was established in 1932 following the demise of Wigan Borough. They played their fixtures at Springfield
Park and they spent most of their early years in the Cheshire League. It wasn’t until 1978 that they were elected
into the football league and they moved to the DW stadium in 1999. As mentioned in my first report, Wigan is a
Rugby League Town and the Latics share the stadium with the highly successful
Wigan Warriers.
It was a great
achievement for Wigan to win the FA Cup last season as they have limited
resources and a limited fan base. Many
people in the area are Rugby league fans and football supporters around the vacinity of Wigan tend to follow
the big traditional teams within a twenty mile area of Wigan such as
Manchester United, Liverpool, Everton and Manchester City.
It is great for the
Giant Killing adventure that Wigan has joined our party. We specifically started our journey as close
to Wigan as possible because they are the current holders of the trophy. It would be fantastic for them to lift it
again, but they will face tough competition in the semi-final against top four Premiership
side Arsenal.
Despite their FA Cup
victory Wigan were relegated last season to the highly competitive
Championship. They have hit a good spell
of form having won 7 out of their last 10 games and beating Manchester City
again, away from home in the 6th Round Proper. They are currently in
5th place with 62 points from 37 games.
Arsenal however, are in
another league. The Premiership is the
top flight of English football and they are in 4th place with 63
points from 31 games. They started well
this season but have hit a run of sticky form having only won 4 of their last
10 games (during this period they have suffered heavy defeats to Liverpool 1-5
and Chelsea 0-6). Arsenal will still be
strong favorites to lift the FA Cup but it won’t be easy as they are struggling
and up against an in-form Wigan.
The Giant Killing
Adventure is heading back to the nation’s capital and it cannot wait. The last trip to London was brilliant and we’ve
never been to the new Wembley Stadium.
Roll on 12th April…
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