Scene of one of the best away days this season, Halifax enjoy their first ever Trophy success. Welcome to the club! In years to come relegation will be forgotten but Trophy winners will remain on the honours board and in the memories of those who were there. Ey oop!
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Went to the game today - joint Vase and Trophy final day out which seemed to boost the attendance significantly - and the Halifax support was amazing. Must have been 12,000 there. Superb atmosphere with a similar number of Mariners fans. Felt massively for Hereford though - took 20,000 and went a goal up after a minute only to lose convincingly to a very tidy Morpeth side 4-1. Nice to go to Wembley without the nerves and trauma of last year.
I too went to Wembley yesterday with my father in law to watch Hereford. Bizarre game in that Hereford were so on top for the first 25 mins but couldn't get the killer second goal. Once Morpeth equalised then they fully deserved the win.
Didn't hang around for the Halifax v Grimsby game. Loads of Mariners on the train from High Wycombe when we travelled up at 10:30.
Out of interest or those who were there, how did it work to have a double header. Were there four segregated areas for each group of fans or were fans mixed?. Was it distracting to have in the first game, people interested in the second game arriving mid way through and in the second game those there for the first drifting off mid way through? Or did most people watch both.?
I thought it was great hoping they do the same thing next year. Alot of the Hereford fans left but you can understand that having been battered. I was sat in the Morpeth end and quite a few stayed on to watch the second game.
Segregation was done on a vague quarter of the stadium basis, though Grimsby seemed to have one full end then round to the halfway line, but only the bottom tier. Hereford had one quarter right up to the top tier - and filled it. Halifax had another corner on two tiers and Morpeth had about two blocks along one side. It did make for a slightly odd atmosphere at times but plenty of noise. A fair few Halifax and Grimsby fans got there for the Vase final. Perhaps understandably most Hereford fans left soon after their game finished. A few hundred Morpeth stayed but given the length of their journey home most left after.
Many neutrals seemed to be in Club Wembley seats (where we were). You couldn't leave the stadium between matches but there's loads of food places and bars, and they were letting people bring their own food in.
I'd definitely recommend it next year if it is repeated - it was £25 for an adult ticket and a quid for kids. Good way of boosting the crowd and hopefully getting more kids interested in lower league football.
You couldn't leave the stadium between the matches? How was that operated?
I thought when the idea was put forward the two games would be a little closer together in terms of kick off times. Seemed like quite a big gap between the matches, even if there was extra time. Did this work ok? I went to the Rugby League World Cup double header semi final and it worked ok.
Might give it a go next year.
I think he probably means you couldn't leave and then come back in, rather than they were stopping people from leaving
Probably right. No pass out system like at Lords. Kind of makes sense but the restaurants in the retail park would have been a good option between the games rather than the kiosks. Might be asking too much for that though.
People leaving after the particular match they went to see . Well that was always going to happen, after you have been stuffed, the last thing you want to do it sit through another match that has nothing to do with you. Anyway the real reason the Vase has been put on with the Trophy is the FA are terrified that the Northern league's dominance will continue, It’s the league’s seventh Vase win in the last eight seasons. The followings are not the greatest because the teams are from small towns and some are only really Pit villages. The Final should not be about the FA making a profit, but sadly it seems to be. The football powers at the FA have for years bullied this league so much so that its only on the same standing as the Spartan South Midlands League! It once was on the same par as The Northern Premier, Southern Premier and Isthmian Premier! All because they stood up to the pyramid's unfair demands. A quarter of Morpeth’s 16,000 population made the gruelling trip down to the capital for an early kick-off. Good luck to them. So back to the point. As much as its great for a neutral, It's not something I ever want to be involved in with our club.
So here is Mike Amos, the Northern league chairman's blog from the final.
May 22 2016.
It’s extraordinary to think that my first FA Vase final – the first of 12 involving Northern League clubs – was back in 1997, Whitby Town. How time flies.
Still I remember the build-up, the anticipation, the nerves. Familiarity has done nothing to take the edge off those emotions. Though this occasion is, for the first time, shared with the FA Trophy final, the Vase is a uniquely joyous occasion.
Still I remember like yesterday the entire Whitby contingent chanting “Sea-sea-siders” and Joe Burlison chanting “Tee-Tee-Teesiders”; still I recall my euphoric dripple, with a paper cup, from stadium back to the Underground.
In the Bobby Moore suite, the bookies are offering 9-2 against a Morpeth win after 90 minutes. The top six options on the first scorer are all Hereford players – and so, after about a minute and a half, it proves.
The day of the beast? The bovine thought comes incorrigibly to mind that if it continues like this the headline will have to be “Taurus apart.”
Then the fight back begins. Chris Swailes, 45 – known to the media as The Bionic Man and to team mates as Uncle Albert – puts one in off his chest from about three inches and Morpeth’s marvellous fans, outnumbered five-to-one, simply rock the stadium.
Morpeth’s second comes while many of us are still emerging from the tea hut and apparently takes so long to cross the line that we might have enjoyed another cuppa.
Then it just gets better. The team which five years ago was bottom of the Northern League second division, which would have been relegated had any been eligible to take their place, takes the Bulls squarely by the horns and wins, incredibly, 4-1.
It’s the league’s seventh Vase win in the last eight seasons – oh gosh, what will they be muttering elsewhere? – and the last of my 20-year tenure.
It’s impossible not to believe that, like others before them, a small part of the winners’ determination has been not just because they belong to this league but because there’s a real and almost tangible pride in so doing. Do others understand that?
At the final whistle, Kenny Beattie and I enjoy a huge embrace in the royal box. Afterwards I realise that the bear hug has been so intense that it’s stopped my watch.
It’s eight minutes past two in the afternoon of Sunday May 22 and if that’s the moment when time stood still, it’s the perfect way to go.
@M3G name 4 'pit villages' that have won these trophies in the past few years.
@woodlands The reference was to the membership of the league. Not specifically winners of the Vase. Tow Law Town a former pit village is a classic example of a finalist at Wembley. Population approximately 2500.
Whatever happened to Frickley Athletic?
Went to watch Darlington 1883 play at Frickley in April Evo stik Northern Premier.Average gate was 210 over a 1000 turned up. Still only opened the tea bar at usual time. Huge queues . Sitting in the main stand a great view of a well landscaped old slag heap. They beat Darlington who were on a 4 week run of 3 games a week to fulfill their fixtures still romped the league.
This old slag heap I presume?