Mass Trip To London By Northerners

In a couple of weeks time, the FA Cup semi-finals will be played at Wembley on Saturday 16th April and Sunday 17th April. That same week-end, Liverpool play Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium. This means a fairly massive trek of Northerners to London. Manchester United play Manchester City and Bolton Wanderers play Stoke City. All clubs from the north and with about 180,000 supporters making the journey. Then add on the 20,000 or so from Liverpool and you have, as Alex Ferguson has pointed out, a recipe for chaos. Just to add to the fun, the London Marathon takes place on the Sunday. There is absolutely no reason to play the FA Cup semi-finals in London. There is a host of quite suitable grounds in the North, which could be used and this mass trip to London be avoided. Of course, it is being done because the FA needs to recoup the cost of building the Wembley Stadium - a project that went way beyond all initial estimates - as well as most of the revisions.

A betting man will put his money on Manchester United to go to the final. But to play whom? I hope it will be Bolton Wanderers, of course, but they do have a propensity for chucking everything away in the last five minutes and Stoke have been playing well recently. All I can do is keep my fingers crossed. Bolton have not played in the FA Cup Final since 1958, when they beat Manchester United 2 - 0. Nat Lofthouse scored both goals. That Bolton team was made up of players, not one of whom cost Bolton a transfer fee - in spite of the fact that five of them were full internationals. Manchester United had been rebuilt after the Munich Disaster but was still made up of a lot of expensive players. This year Manchester United is still made up of expensive players - like Manchester City. I suppose Manchester United would like to avenge the defeat of 1958 but whether they play Bolton or Stoke I will be supporting the underdog. It worked out OK in the Carling Cup when Birmingham beat Arsenal.

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