Ladies' Night at Stamford Bridge

Thursday 23rd May 2013 
UEFA Women's Champions League Final

VfL Wolfsburg 1-0 Olympique Lyonnais

Stamford Bridge
Attendance: 19 278

CONGRATULATIONS to VfL Wolfsburg who won the UEFA Women's Champions League title on a showery evening at Stamford Bridge.

The victory completes a remarkable end to the season for Wolfsburg's ladies.  The club which had previously never won a trophy has, within two weeks, ended the 2012/13 campaign with a treble of league, domestic cup and Champions League glory.

This was an evening where Chelsea's home played host to a prestigious UEFA event graced by clubs from Germany and France.  Images of the two teams were displayed on the wall at the back of the West Stand, providing a popular photo opportunity for many fans, and further images adorned the wall to the rear of the Shed End.

In an impressive opening ceremony just minutes before kick-off, a huge purple star and the badges of both clubs were unfurled on the pitch to the sound of the UEFA anthem, as Faye White, former Arsenal and England captain and now a Champions League ambassador, carried the trophy into the arena.

The Women's UEFA Champions League, originally named the UEFA Women's Cup, is an 11-

year-old competition which adopted its current name and format in season 2009/10 when the final became a one-off match, rather than a two-legged affair.

This season 54 teams have been involved and following a qualification process, 32 made it through to the knock-out stages which began in September.

For the fourth year running, the final was a Franco-German affair.  Olympique Lyonnais were appearing in their fourth consecutive final and aiming to become the first team to lift the cup three seasons in a row.  Having lost on penalties to FFC Turbine Potsdam in 2010, the French outfit had gained revenge by beating the same opposition 12 months later and had gone on to retain the trophy by defeating 1.FFC Frankfurt in last year's final, played in front of a crowd of over 50 000 in Munich's Olympic Stadium.

Lyon's domination of French women's football is highly impressive.  The team, managed by Patrice Lair, have won their domestic league every year since 2007, remaining unbeaten in each of the last three seasons, and before tonight were on an unbeaten run of 76 games, their last defeat having been after a penalty shoot-out in 2011.  They had not lost any of their previous 118 matches over 90 minutes.
 
Meanwhile VfL Wolfsburg had reached this final in their debut season in the Champions League, and their presence ensured German representation in the final for the sixth consecutive season.  The club from the home of Volkswagen may have been relative novices at this level compared to their opponents, but had already won one cup final this week, defeating Turbine Potsdam to clinch Germany's domestic cup title in Cologne last Sunday.

The German team did not lack Champions League experience either.  Six members of the squad had already won the competition and two of tonight's starting XI, Josephine Henning and captain Nadine Kessler, were in the Turbine Potsdam team which had defeated tonight's opponents in the final of 2010.
 
So Wolfsburg were no minnows here, and made the brigher start to the game, while the reigning European champions took time to make their mark.

Sitting on the lower tier of the East Stand, towards the corner of the Shed End, I sensed that the majority, but by no means all, of those around me favoured Olympique, with more German fans sitting on the opposite side.  Many young people were in the crowd, teenagers and schoolchildren amongst them, all enjoying the evening's entertainment - on a school night too, or are some schools already on half-term?

With just under 30 minutes played, a Mexican Wave gathered momentum around Stamford Bridge's lower tier.  I tolerated this form of merriment among the crowds at the London 2012 events, but nearly one year on, perhaps I'm turning back into the grumpy old man, as I once again found it an annoying and unwanted distraction from the action on the pitch.

The destiny of the trophy was ultimately to be decided on a 73rd minute penalty.  Rumanian

referee Teodora Albon pointed immediately to the spot when the ball hit the hand of Olympique's Laura George.  Martine Müller slammed the spot kick high into the net above the outstretched hand of 'keeper Sarah Bouhaddi.  Call it ein Tor, un but, or whatever your preference on this European night in SW6.

Müller, who joined the then second division Wolfsburg back in 2005, had already come close to opening the scoring, shooting narrowly wide just moments before the interval, but now her time had come.

After German 'keeper Alisa Vetterlein held a shot at the second attempt, deep into four minutes of added time, Wolfsburg were able to begin a joyous celebration at the end of a momentous season.  UEFA President Michel Platini presented the 60 cm-high, sterling silver trophy on the presentation platform assembled for the evening on the middle tier of the West Stand.

Keen to make the most of the occasion, I remained in the stadium to witness the post-match scenes, as die Wölfinnen (the She-Wolves, as per the translation in the match programme) paraded the cup around Stamford Bridge, starting in front of the West Stand, where the majority of their fans seemed to be gathered, before coming round to the Shed End and East Stand.

Despite having no allegiance to either side, I had instinctively favoured the German team in this Germany v France clash, not simply because they were the underdogs, but more due to my own personal Franco-German history.

I studied both languages many years ago, with a 50:50 split for the first two years of my University course.  As the second year wore on, I needed to choose one of the two countries in which to spend a year immersing myself in the language.  I opted for Germany, perhaps only because I felt my French was slightly stronger at the time, and wanted to bring my German up to scratch.  Otherwise it could have come down to the toss of a coin (or even a penalty shoot-out, but we all know who would have won that).

So the dye was cast.  I went on to spend ten months of my life in the beautiful Sauerland region, falling in love with Germany and its language, going to a wide selection of Bundesliga matches (of course), and letting my French go very rusty in the meantime.  The balance was never to be restored.

Surprisingly, perhaps shamefully, this was my first ever visit to a women's football match.  Last summer I had watched some of the London 2012 football tournament on television, and had marvelled at the sight of over 70 000 fans watching Hope Powell's Team GB defeat Brazil at Wembley to reach the quarter-finals.

Furthermore, England's top women's club and 2007 Champions League winners, Arsenal Ladies, play their home games practically on my doorstep at Borehamwood, and must surely be worth a visit, and a blog post, soon.

This was my first trip to Stamford Bridge since January 1996, back in the pre-Abramovich era when Chelsea were managed by Glenn Hoddle and had an entertaining but largely unsuccessful team containing international superstars such as Ruud Gullit and former Mansfield Town goalkeeper Kevin Hitchcock.
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Sitting high up the East Stand all those years ago for the visit of Nottingham Forest, any unease I felt about being an East Midlander in the middle of a partisan London crowd soon lifted when a young chap sitting just in front of me, possibly a tourist from overseas, asked the bloke next to him who the guy with the dreadlocks in the number 4 shirt was.  The Dutch maestro Gullit, who would become Chelsea manager the following summer when Hoddle left Stamford Bridge to take the England job, was only one of the most famous and instantly-recognisable players in the world at the time.  Suddenly I had felt much more "at home".

Although it was the same East Stand I sat in tonight, little or nothing else about Stamford Bridge remains as it was in the 1990s.  The stadium now has a three-tier West Stand, opened in 2001 and with a row of executive boxes sitting above its second tier.  The Shed End, once the home terrace where the most vocal Chelsea fans gathered, but a temporary uncovered stand on each of my last two visits, is now a double-decker structure which includes the away section for domestic matches.

The new stands also wrap neatly around all four corners of the stadium, making the ground completely enclosed.

At the end of an enjoyable evening, I was pleased to have made it to one Champions League final in London in 2013.  The other one, the all-German clash between Bayern Munich and my favourite Bundesliga team, Borussia Dortmund, awaits us at Wembley on Saturday.  With Dortmund receiving over half a million applications for a paltry 24 000 tickets, my chances of getting a ticket in the ballot were always slim.  Sufficed to say, I did not have the necessary huge slice of good fortune.

Not to worry - Wembley may be out of my reach this time, but Thursday night at Stamford Bridge delivered a successful and inspiring end to my 2012/13 season.

Mansfield Town 1-0 Wrexham

Saturday 20th April 2013

Blue Square Bet Premier

One Call Stadium
Attendance: 6394 (away support 142)

CONGRATULATIONS to Mansfield Town - Blue Square Bet Premier champions 2012/13!

On a gloriously sunny afternoon at Field Mill, a 40th minute penalty from Matt Green was enough to give Paul Cox's team a 20th win in 23 games, securing the title and that coveted return to the Football League after a five-year absence.

It's been a long wait for Mansfield Town fans to see their team escape non-league football.  In what has arguably become the toughest league in English football from which to win promotion, manager Paul Cox has done an exceptional job in two seasons, winning 55 out of 92 league games, and, despite a stuttering first half to this campaign, building on last season's third place and play-off defeat to lead the team to top spot.

All Stags fans also owe a huge debt of gratitude to chairman John Radford.  Since taking over Mansfield Town in September 2010 and rescuing it from financial peril, Radford has succeeded in regaining ownership of the stadium for the club and financed the building of a promotion-winning squad.

The last traces of that late winter had disappeared for this special occasion, with Mansfield bathed in bright sunshine.  Not surprisingly, there was plenty of tension around the ground both during the build-up and throughout the game.  We had joined a long queue for the turnstiles of the Ian Greaves Stand, and with all home tickets sold and allocated seating enforced (a prelude to next season), the stewards were kept busy directing fans, more used to being able to sit where they want, to their designated seats.  So where exactly is Block K, Row M, Seat 35?

On this final day of the regular Blue Square Bet Premier season, all kick-off times had been synchronised to 17:15 to allow for one game being televised live.  Premier Sports had decided to bring their cameras to Mansfield, suggesting that it was here that they expected the league title to be won.

The Stags knew that they had to win the game against a Wrexham side which was already looking ahead to the play-offs, and that any slip-up would leave the door open for Kidderminster Harriers to reclaim top spot with a win at home to relegation-threatened Stockport County.

According to reports, Dennis Strudwick, General Manager of the Football Conference, was sitting in his car at Tamworth services by the M42 with the trophy and medals by his side, and would make a decision around half-time on whether to head towards Mansfield or Kidderminster to make the presentation.

With the destiny of the title in Mansfield's hands, I was of the view that Stags fans need only focus on getting behind their own team and not be distracted by events in Worcestershire.  But I confess that after around 20 minutes play, with the game going on in front of us still goalless, I did take a quick look at nonleaguelive.com to check the score at Kidderminster - also 0-0 at that stage.

Despite Mansfield dominating possession, the expectant and nervous crowd had to wait nearly 40 minutes for the much-needed breakthrough.  Referee Nicholas Kinseley pointed to the penalty spot after Louis Briscoe was upended inside the box.  Matt Green, already with 56 goals in two seasons to his name, drove a perfect penalty low and hard past Wrexham 'keeper Andy Coughlin's right hand and into the bottom corner.

Field Mill erupted; the roar from the crowd could have raised the roof of the stands, as the tension lifted and the players ran towards the corner flag to celebrate with mascot Sammy the Stag.

The visitors from north Wales, their own title challenge having fizzled out in the past month, went into this game with key players injured, and did not seriously threaten Alan Marriott's goal all afternoon.  But, as any pundit will tell you, you can never relax at 1-0, and the news filtering through from Kidderminster that the Harriers' match had been interrupted by crowd trouble also raised the possibility of our being left in limbo at the final whistle waiting for the much-delayed end of the game at Aggborough, should Wrexham have found an equaliser from somewhere.

The tension was almost unbearable as the game headed into four minutes of stoppage time, although the Stags' cause was helped when Wrexham's ex-Mansfield centre-back Dave Artell was sent off for a late challenge on Colin Daniel.

Near-deafening whistles accompanied the final two minutes, before the referee brought the contest, and the season, to a close.

The final whistle.  Now we await the arrival of Mr Strudwick

Finally the job was done; Mansfield Town were confirmed as champions and the years of exile from the Football  League were at an end.  The moments which followed were filled with a mixture of joy, relief and exhaustion, as we eagerly awaited the presentations.

Temporary crush barriers placed in front of the home stands kept any pitch invasion to a minimum, and Mr Strudwick, having seemingly had a smooth journey from his Tamworth starting point, appeared on the pitch within minutes to present the winners' medals to the Stags squad before handing over the Football Conference champions trophy to skipper Adam Murray.

There was a deserved ovation and three cheers for John Radford too, plus the touching site of manager Paul Cox carrying his two-year-old daughter onto the pitch to join in the celebrations with dad.

Almost inevitably, "We are the Champions" and "Simply the Best" boomed out of the Field Mill PA system as the players paraded the trophy in front of the home fans, while the Stags faithful celebrated the club's first league championship since 1976/77, coincidentally a season where the title was also clinched with a 1-0 win against Wrexham on the last day, and where Mansfield had earlier been dumped out of a cup competition by Matlock Town.

A little boy sitting behind me, no more than five-years-old, looked like he was having the time of his life, and it was good to see many young fans in the stand today.  Some say that Mansfield Town has a relatively old fanbase, but a look around the Ian Greaves Stand today suggests that the club does have young blood, which will need to be encouraged to attend regularly in the seasons ahead by setting sensible admission prices and reaching out to local schools.

Today was one of those days when I didn't want to leave the ground, and of course we stayed until all the Stags players had left the pitch.  Making my way down the steps towards the exit, I thought back to the last Football League game I had attended here, a miserable 4-0 defeat against Rochdale in March 2008.  Back then, walking down those same steps, I had said to myself, "Take a good look around this place; it might be the last time you see it as a Football League ground".

That was a dark era for Mansfield Town Football Club, but five years on, with the club revitalised, I now know that that was not the last time.

Almost 35 years after my dad first took me to Field Mill, I've seen the Stags win a league title.  For my son, the wait has been just five years, and now he too will get to see Mansfield Town play in the Football League.

There may have been a slight sense of anti-climax as we headed back to our base for the day at Mansfield Woodhouse, before embarking on a late evening drive back down the M1 to Herts.  There was no partying for us in town, no conga around the market place, nor a visit to Mansfield's night clubs, which, so I'm told, attract revellers from across the region.

Back at the start of the day I had tried to spread goodwill by tweeting 'good luck' messages not only to Mansfield Town, but also to Boreham Wood and Enfield Town, wishing them well for their matches and hoping that this would create a positive vibe for the hours to come.

That late kick-off had begun to annoy me in the build-up to the game - my nerves were jangling and I just wanted the match to start.  As I spent part of Saturday afternoon relaxing in my native Woodhouse, it felt more like a lazy summer's day, and it was hard to believe that there was still a critical game of football coming up in the next couple of hours.

With the season at an end, Mansfield Town can look back on an ultimately triumphant campaign.  It had started with such high expectations, but then came the dismal away form which plagued the team in the early weeks of the season, including those miserable trips to Ebbsfleet, Cambridge and Dartford experienced by this author; the increasing pressure on manager Paul Cox who seemed to have disrupted a winning team with numerous new signings and team changes; the diversion provided by the FA Cup run and the national acclaim which the club enjoyed when Liverpool and the ESPN cameras came to town in early January.  What followed was surely beyond the expectations of even the most optimistic Stags fan, as the team embarked on a winning run which surpassed that of the previous season, those 20 wins in 23 games from mid-January propelling the team to the top of the table and leaving long-time front-runners such as Wrexham and Grimsby Town trailing.

On page 63 of today's match programme, I had been able to sum up Mansfield Town's season in a few sentences:

"A season which has had everything.

It started with high hopes, followed by the disastrous away defeats in the early weeks and the growing pressure on Paul Cox.  We moved on to the FA Cup run which raised fans' spirits and brought the club some rare national media exposure.  Who honestly thought that we could then go on a winning run even better than last season's to climb to the top of the table?

It's hard to believe that all this has happened in one season."

Alternatively, for the benefit of any publication where space is severely limited, I could settle for just one word:


Champions!

			P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1		Mansfield Town	46	30	5	11	92	52	+40	95
2		Kidderminster Harriers	46	28	9	9	82	40	+42	93
3		Newport County	46	25	10	11	85	60	+25	85
4		Grimsby Town	46	23	14	9	70	38	+32	83
5		Wrexham	46	22	14	10	74	45	+29	80

And so to the final day

TWISTS and turns - it threatens to become an overused cliché when describing this season in the Blue Square Bet Premier.  Mansfield Town manager Paul Cox has used it before and so have I, but it's surely an appropriate way to describe the latest installment in the 2012/13 campaign.

Matt Green's winning goal for Mansfield, deep into stoppage time at Hereford last night, gives the Stags a two-point lead at the top of the table, with the final round of matches coming up this weekend.

That late, late strike from Green means that Paul Cox's team can guarantee a return to the Football League after a five-year absence with a win at home to Wrexham on Saturday.

Meanwhile Kidderminster Harriers must also win their final fixture, at home to relegation-threatened Stockport County, to retain a chance of pipping Mansfield to the title.

More late goals elsewhere last night also ensured that Stockport go into that game still with an outside chance of avoiding the drop into the Conference North.

An 80th minute equaliser for Ebbsfleet United at home to Tamworth, plus a last-gasp leveller for Stockport against Gateshead, mean that the Harriers' opponents on the final day still have something to fight for.

It's been a remarkable turnaround at the top of the table in the past couple of months.  Neither Mansfield Town nor Kidderminster Harriers began the season well.  Mansfield had the second worst away record in the league until mid-November, while the Harriers lost all their opening five games before drawing the next five.

But from January, both teams embarked on a tremendous run, with Mansfield victorious in 19 of their last 22 games, and Kidderminster winning 17 of their last 20.  That great form has seen these two sides rise to the top, leaving long-time front-runners Newport County, Wrexham, Grimsby Town and Forest Green Rovers trailing.

So for the first time since season 2008/09, the destiny of the Conference title will be decided on the last day, and this blogger will be in Mansfield on Saturday to witness the finale.

			P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1		Mansfield Town	45	29	5	11	91	52	+39	92
2		Kidderminster Harriers	45	27	9	9	78	40	+38	90
3		Newport County	45	25	10	10	85	57	+28	85
4		Wrexham	45	22	14	9	74	44	+30	80
5		Grimsby Town	45	22	14	9	67	38	+29	80
6		Hereford United	45	18	13	14	69	63	+6	67
7		Dartford	45	19	9	17	67	62	+5	66
8		Forest Green Rovers	45	18	11	16	62	47	+15	65
9		Braintree Town	45	18	9	18	62	72	-10	63
10		Woking	45	18	8	19	72	79	-7	62
11		Luton Town	44	16	13	15	65	61	+4	61
12		Macclesfield Town	45	16	12	17	63	69	-6	60
13		Cambridge United	45	15	14	16	67	67	0	59
14		Alfreton Town	45	15	12	18	67	73	-6	57
15		Hyde FC	45	16	7	22	62	70	-8	55
16		Nuneaton	45	13	15	17	54	63	-9	54
17		Southport	45	14	12	19	71	83	-12	54
18		Lincoln City	45	14	11	20	61	72	-11	53
19		Gateshead	45	12	16	17	56	61	-5	52
20		Tamworth	45	14	10	21	53	68	-15	52
21		Stockport County	45	13	11	21	57	72	-15	50
22		Barrow	45	11	13	21	45	82	-37	46
23		Ebbsfleet United	44	8	15	21	55	85	-30	39
24		AFC Telford United	45	6	17	22	52	75	-23	35