I think that may have been the final between Manchester City and Wigan
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Wembley travel fiasco - FA Cup semi final 16/17 April 2022
- Thread starter Shrop
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I think that may have been the final between Manchester City and Wigan
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AlterEgo
Veteran Member
It doesn't help the final is now normally a 4:30-5:15pm kick off time.
They can bring back the 3pm kick off time as well while they're at it.
They can bring back the 3pm kick off time as well while they're at it.
dk1
Veteran Member
You cannot believe that the FA could be so stupid.
DarloRich
Veteran Member
I assume you have never had dealings with the FA! This is simply standard practice which barely even twitches the needle on stupidometer.
Bevan Price
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Fans are irrelevant; they do what the TV companies want.
And by now, FA should realise that train services over Easter Weekend are always liable to be rubbish, but again, they don't care.
Statto
Established Member
Anyone with half a brain would have worked out Easter weekend is a bad weekend to be hosting big cup semi finals due to the amount of engineering works going on, & play the semi's on a different weekend, but oh no not The FA.
I also see the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final, is scheduled to be played at the Tottenham Stadium for May 28th. which is Spring Bank Holiday weekend, which will feature Northern based teams, guarantee more blockades hindering travel then.
I also see the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final, is scheduled to be played at the Tottenham Stadium for May 28th. which is Spring Bank Holiday weekend, which will feature Northern based teams, guarantee more blockades hindering travel then.
Falcon1200
Established Member
Or that the match could last well beyond 90 minutes too, if a draw at full time ! Agree k.o should be 3pm.
The interesting thing here is that, at last, ”The Railway” has made it clear that the works have been scheduled for some time, and that it is the event organiser who has consciously chosen to go ahead with the event at a time and location where there will be restricted services.
a couple of other points:
The cup Semis have not been held over Easter weekend at the new Wembley before. Had the FA indicated that they would be, 3 years ago, the work could well have been scheduled differently.
As @The Planner has said, there is work all the way from Euston to Bletchley.
big engineering work this year is being crunched up, as there’s very little taking place over the jubilee weekend. Therefore there is more at Easter than normal.
When clubs from the Midlands and North get to the play at Wembley, the number of people who use long distance trains to get there is relatively small. AIUI rarely more than 25-30%. And the number of those doing at least one direction on the day is even smaller. A significant proportion of fans are not coming from the
midlands or north (particularly Man U and Liverpool fans). And for those that are travelling from near their clubs, most people prefer the M6 / M1 / M40. Coaches provided by the clubs are usually cheaper (Man City are charging £40)
a couple of other points:
The cup Semis have not been held over Easter weekend at the new Wembley before. Had the FA indicated that they would be, 3 years ago, the work could well have been scheduled differently.
As @The Planner has said, there is work all the way from Euston to Bletchley.
big engineering work this year is being crunched up, as there’s very little taking place over the jubilee weekend. Therefore there is more at Easter than normal.
When clubs from the Midlands and North get to the play at Wembley, the number of people who use long distance trains to get there is relatively small. AIUI rarely more than 25-30%. And the number of those doing at least one direction on the day is even smaller. A significant proportion of fans are not coming from the
midlands or north (particularly Man U and Liverpool fans). And for those that are travelling from near their clubs, most people prefer the M6 / M1 / M40. Coaches provided by the clubs are usually cheaper (Man City are charging £40)
DarloRich
Veteran Member
@Bald Rick the only issue with the club coaches is that drinking is not allowed but I agree whenever I have been to a Wembley cup final/semi most people have come by road.
Y Ddraig Coch
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Drinking isn't meant to be allowed... I have been on many where discreet drinking is allowed and blind eye is turned. But a train always trumps a coach. Traffic, time and been stuck in the same seat for hours and not being able to get up and walk around always make a train my preferred choice. But railways don't make it easy to make it work recently so road has been the option.
When the train does work though they are always packed even early ones at 7 or 8 am ish and always good fun.
Twingo37175
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Agreed - I am sure for the "Sheffield day out" in the 93 semi final it was a 13:00 kick off - just meant earlier trains
What the TV companies do is set out in their agreements with the FA though.
We're now the only country left in the UEFA zone with a legal restriction blocking broadcast of matches on a Saturday between 2.45pm and 5.15pm. The FA then go and sell rights to broadcast live matches, so naturally they have to be outside of those times - further more, the rights are sold based on the time slots of the matches, the broadcasters only get to bid on which of the matches should be played in those slots, with various, FA provided, complicated rules over which matches are eligible.
The fairest solution, for broadcasters, teams, players and supporters, would be to restrict all league matches to be Saturday 3pm, with other competitions to be held at other equally convenient times away from that slot. But then the FA wouldn't be making as much money from the rights.
Kite159
Veteran Member
28th May isn't the bank holiday weekend this year, as the bank holiday which would have been on the Monday got changed to being the Friday with an extra one on the Thursday for Liz's 70th year celebration.
Won't stop London Overground/Network Rail deciding it would be a good weekend to close the line via Seven Sisters for engineering works
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
How much would a return rail ticket from the north-west to London to allow the fans to travel to this particular semi-final cost these days?
Its not closed. If dates are notified far enough in advance, then routes are kept clear.
Reasonably high levels of capacity will still be available, limited mainly by the capacity of the coach service between Kettering and Rugby on the eastern route, and the CrossCountry services between Stafford and Banbury on the western route. It's just that journey times will be approximately 4 1/2 hours. Of course, if the Corby - London services are short formed to four coaches, as sometimes happens, this may present a problem.
Chiltern will have good capacity from Birmingham Moor Street southwards, but the minimum interchange time to walk between Birmingham New Street and Birmingham Moor Street of 25 minutes is just slightly too long for some of the good connections.
I don't think any of this changes that most people will travel by road, though.
Chiltern will have good capacity from Birmingham Moor Street southwards, but the minimum interchange time to walk between Birmingham New Street and Birmingham Moor Street of 25 minutes is just slightly too long for some of the good connections.
I don't think any of this changes that most people will travel by road, though.
Statto
Established Member
Opps, i forgot the Spring Bank Holiday has been moved this year.
Drogba11CFC
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The FA are providing 100 free buses for Man City and Liverpool fans.
Just watch as the Highways Agency now announce that the M6 is closed all weekend for essential roadworks.
Just watch as the Highways Agency now announce that the M6 is closed all weekend for essential roadworks.
As relatively modern (by which I mean of course 20th century) infrastructure, British motorways and expressways can of course be kept open by closing half at a time while any urgent work can safely proceed on the other side of a crash barrier from two-way traffic, albeit at limited capacity. Most new build High Speed Rail, at least if it follows the relevant Technical Specifications for Interoperability, can sort of allow this by using single line working as the lines are far apart enough to allow a temporary barrier to be used between running lines to separate the workforce from the open line. Such work is actually possible occasionally on older lines too, including large parts of the West Coast, but in a pretty limited way compared to the access you can get by setting up a contraflow. Working with adjacent lines open is in general fairly heavily restricted, and it is not too difficult to appreciate why.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
How many will these buses take of the total number of ticket-allocated fans of both the football clubs concerned?
scotrail158713
Established Member
If you assume the average coach has between 50 and 70 seats (obviously some could be larger and some smaller as well) then maybe 5000-7000 fans by my calculations. Not a huge number overall but I suppose it's better than nothing.
Falcon1200
Established Member
Presumably these will be mostly (all ?) diesel coaches and not therefore exactly environmentally friendly ?
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Do you really think that football fans getting a free ride there and back to a football match will even think for a single moment about your reservations about the environment?
Falcon1200
Established Member
No (although some might), actually I was thinking more about the FA's environmental credentials, given that 'reservations about the environment' are quite a big thing nowadays.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
If that be the case, locate the match in the north-west in order to cut down the emissions from these buses that will so occur over the very many kilometres from the north west to London and back.
Snow1964
Established Member
The FA is hiring 200 Road coaches for FA cup semi-final
Looks like the railway has let the Road opposition win, due to its inflexibility regarding using diversionary routes
www.route-one.net
Looks like the railway has let the Road opposition win, due to its inflexibility regarding using diversionary routes
Coach industry to help solve FA Cup semi-final travel debacle - routeone
The coach industry has come to the rescue of an FA Cup semi-final on 16 April with free travel to be provided on 200 vehicles.
www.route-one.net
Shrop
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The railway will just accept this as relatively unimportant, I can't see that they were ever likely to change their plans. What concerns me more is the lack of interest from the Government who claim to be encouraging environmentally friendly travel, so much so that they're talking about reducing speed limits to save fuel, and yet here is a massively high profile event where they've completely failed to get the FA to change the venue to a more sensible one for travel. Did they even try to lean on the FA other than making a couple of ineffective political soundbites?
And meanwhile, trains full of opposing fans would have been completely segregated until reaching Wembley, so let's hope coach loads of opposing fans aren't disruptive at service stations along the route. Is it too much to hope that the FA (who are providing the coaches) will have arranged for Liverpool and Manchester coaches to use different service stations? If not then anything unsavoury at the match could be quite a problem for unrelated motorists and service station staff ...
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