Sunday 16th February 2020, 14:00, - I’d like to re-welcome Manchester City Women FC to our blog...
At the beginning of our journey we discussed the Manchester City Women’s team as they are the current holders of the Women’s FA Cup. On Star Wars Day (May the 4th, 2019) City beat West Ham United 3-0, in front of 43,264 fans. Manchester City, along with Arsenal and Chelsea, are top favourites to win the competition in 2020 – this will be the 50th Women’s FA Cup Final.
Back on 7th September 2019, the GKA visited the Etihad and was part of the 31,213 fans who witnessed the first ever competitive Manchester Women’s Derby (see post entitled a heavy burrito and a strong walk).
City Women won 1-0 in a closely fought encounter and the GKA is looking forward to it’s second trip to see the Manchester City Women, however, this time it is to visit their usual home ground – The Manchester Academy Stadium.
City were originally formed in 1988 as Manchester City Ladies – they were one of the first teams in the North West to be affiliated with their Men’s club and this link allowed them to start in the 2nd Division of 4 (the North West Regional Women’s Football League).
Success wasn’t always around at City, as both the men’s and women’s teams were relegated in 1997, and there was a serious lack of money and resources for the women’s side. At one point, they were close to merging with Stockport County Ladies. However, they stuck together and got promoted the following season.
Various shake-ups to the women’s football pyramid happened and in 2010 the Women’s Super League was created. In 2014, City had a minor relaunch, as they changed their name to Manchester City Women; brought on board English Internationals Jim Scott and Steph Houghton; and appointed Nick Cushing as their manager (Nick has recently left the club to pursue a career in the USA).
Since then, success has happened as they won the WLS League Title in 2016, the League Cup in 2014, 2016 and 2019 – plus the FA Cup in 2019. Manchester City Women are a major force in Women’s Football, and it will be it be difficult for their opponents to beat them.
Speaking of which, the GKA welcomes Ipswich Town FC Women to our blog…
Ipswich Town FC women play in the Women’s National Division South East, which is the 4th tier of the women’s pyramid. They are currently residing at the top of their Division; 1 point clear of AFC Wimbledon, with a game in-hand.
The GKA could not find any information about the history of the club, however we do know that they are affiliated to the men’s team; they play their home matches at the Goldstar Ground in Felixstowe (low down on the East Coast of England – around 4 hours, 30 minutes from Manchester); their nickname is The Tractor Girls and they have a supporters club of the same title - at away games it's Tractor Girls on Tour.
It’s a long journey for the tracker girls, but a much shorter one for the GKA.
Tickets were £8.50 and easy to purchase by registering on the Manchester City Website – the GKA will be travelling 26.6 miles from Padiham Football Club (where Burnley Women lost to Leicester City in the last round) to…
Tickets were £8.50 and easy to purchase by registering on the Manchester City Website – the GKA will be travelling 26.6 miles from Padiham Football Club (where Burnley Women lost to Leicester City in the last round) to…
The Manchester Academy Stadium…
Men’s Tickets
This is where the difference in the men’s and women’s game can be seen clearly. Women’s tickets are easy to purchase, and they are cheap in comparison (£8.50 compared to approx. £30 in this round). The GKA was looking at men’s matches in which it didn’t have to travel to far, as the men’s 5th Round is scheduled to be played on Wednesday 4th March – an evening game means leaving work early and getting home late.
The GKA first looked at Sheffield Wednesday v Man City, but tickets are not available to anyone who wasn’t already registered at the Club before 24th January 2020 – that’s the GKA out of the equation.
Most other games are being offered to Season Ticket holders and current members first.
The next closest game is West Bromwich Albion V Newcastle United – tickets are not available to the general public until Monday 24th February.
Moving slightly further away is Derby County V Manchester United and those tickets are not available to the general public until Tuesday 25th February.
The next game, in terms of distance is Leicester City V Birmingham City – their tickets are available to the public a week sooner, on Monday 17th but the GKA would rather not travel that far…
Other games are based in the London area and on the south coast.
At this stage, in 2014 when the GKA last completed this journey, following an official route in which it always followed the winner to the next round, there were no such issues in getting tickets – I went to Everton V Swansea and bought tickets straight away.
Let’s see what happens to the men’s route in 2020 and hope that Sunday’s Women’s game isn’t cancelled due to further predicted storms.
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