Freebie Friday: Was it a Wembley dream or a Wembley nightmare?

Hit and miss effort for Finals Day

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As you read last weekend it was Non League Finals Day on Sunday at Wembley, for me the culmination of the season with the major showpiece finals of the Isuzu FA Trophy and Vase.

Last Friday was all about what could be done to increase the attendance figures as the four clubs arriving there on the day aren’t always going to be bringing their thousands to support.

Indeed if you watched both in person or on BT Sport I’m sure you would agree just over 27,000 people made the stadium look sparse and empty. That’s not the fault of the participating clubs at all, your support is your support and I think those sides from Step 5 in the Vase it really does capture the imagination of the day.

What I’m picking up on today however is the experience and there is plenty that can be done better, after all the day is about the clubs, players, staff and more importantly the supporters, so why are the latter treated with contempt at times during these events?

I went with my youngest daughter and two of my mates, one of which is a part of the Premier Non League Podcast (the PNLP) along with me and a few others. We tried to get tickets in the neutral section only to find ‘none available’ when searching so we ended up in the Ascot Utd end, no drama for us, we were there to watch two games of football from wherever the vantage point was.

But, cue the confusion when watching the game and looking over and above to see plenty of empty seats within that section, a heck of a lot of people that changed their mind it would appear but plenty of room either side that could have accommodated and no lack of stewarding to police it.

What was slightly bizarre too was doubled up fan zones outside the stadium, but complete segregation inside i.e. Ascot Utd buddied up with Halifax Town on the concourse before entry and next to each other inside the stadium, but unable to be mixed together then, make it make sense!

While we didn’t have the bother affecting us of where the seats were, more merely an observation, the biggest issue we found was food, drink, its prices and lack of it later on.

Upon adding our views to the PNLP Twitter page we found that we weren’t alone in voicing some, shall we put it, disappointment. Crowd figures for the Vase were much different than last season, maybe a couple of thousand fans less on both sides this time around, no issue I found last year and able to get food and drink without problem.

This year as we went for food in between the two games we found the nacho outlet had already closed, the ‘pie and a pint’ outlet had run out of pies and coffee was gone too. Was this seriously the National Stadium we were in? I’m afraid so, a few remarked to us on the Twitter page they managed to get a pie between games so either they were lucky early or somebody actually switched their brain on and made some move from other areas.

The other choice was a chicken burger that was it, no hot dogs nor burgers, standard football fare to be eating, just the two outlets to serve around 5,000 fans in the Ascot section alone, utterly ridiculous.

Club Wembley where the neutral fans were housed was no better, two food outlets open there and also ran out of some items, were they just hoping people were going to decide to not turn up to watch?

Now, as I mentioned earlier Halifax fans were partitioned off next to the Ascot fans, with their own outlets for food, yet allowed to mix together on the outer concourse but not inside the stadium. It’s not as if there aren’t stewards overrunning the venue to ensure everyone still sits in the right area between games.

The other issue is the gap between the two games. I appreciate the ground staff don’t want things going on across the pitch as they tenderly repair the surface but surely a little bit of something before the sides come out to warm up for the later game?

There must be enough highlights to show on the two big screens and beam them onto the TV’s on the concourse to keep people occupied, not to mention plenty of room for game stalls in those areas as well, it’s as if thinking outside the box stops before you get into the Wembley bubble.

It doesn’t surprise me to see fans treated as second class citizens sometimes, you only have to look at the Premier League to understand that. Is there likely to be any comeback for the FA? I wouldn’t put money on it, whilst last year was pretty good, no doubt bowing down to the Wrexham Hollywood story this year felt like it was almost an inconvenience to be there and playing the games, non-league football deserves more, supporters deserve more.

Were you there for the finals last Sunday? Have you attended previously and found similar issues or none at all? I’d love to hear your views on anything you found worked well or anything that left a sour taste in the mouth, the comments are yours…….