FA Cup – semi final 2025 Notts Forest v Manchester City
Last weekend it was another trip to Wembley to watch Manchester City play Nottingham Forest in the 2025 FA Cup semi final.
A blog post after a trip to Wembley has become a regular event. If looking at people at big events floats your boat then you can see blog posts and pictures from previous Wembley visits at the following links
FA Cup Final 2024 – it’s the people that make the day
The 2024 FA Cup Final and a some genuine kindness
2022 Manchester City and Liverpool
Cup final people Manchester City v Aston Villa
Cup final scenes Manchester City v Aston Villa
There’s not much left to say
Manchester City have visited Wembley around 30 times since 2011. With just a few exceptions I have been at most of those games. The Covid-era final and the last couple of Community Shield matches, were game I chose not to attend.
These Community Shield games often lack full-strength line-ups for a variety of reasons. Given the travel involved, it can be difficult to justify the time and effort for what is essentially a non-competitive fixture—especially when scheduling is dictated more by television audiences than by the interests of match-going fans.
Regardless of the outcome, a trip to Wembley is always an enjoyable experience.
That said, I remain of the view that semi-finals should not be held there, as doing so diminishes the uniqueness of the Wembley occasion. Unfortunately, that debate has long been lost to commercial interests.
Picture set from the semi final
Although there isn’t much left for me to say about a Wembley trip. The opportunities for people watching and snapping a few photographs are always worth it. So this post is more a ‘picture post’ than any write up of the day.
If you want to read match reports they are easy enough to find (City beat Forest 0-2 and will play Crystal Palace in the final).
Empty seats
There has been considerable commentary regarding the return of approximately 5,000 unsold tickets by Manchester City.
While some of the analysis is well-informed and reasonable, other perspectives are less so. For those interested, a wide range of articles are available on the subject. Personally, I believe there are numerous legitimate reasons why individuals may choose not to attend football matches—chief among them being economic and logistical factors.
A striking illustration of how match-going supporters are often treated can be seen in the scheduling of the upcoming FA Cup Final.
Despite the match date being set last year—allowing organisations time to plan—the kick-off time was only confirmed on May 4th, just two weeks before the game. This delay was due to two television broadcasters being unable to agree on a time that served their own commercial interests.
Among the many words written about the semi-final—the game, the atmosphere, and the attendance, one comment stood out to me and it was made by a reader on the BBC website who said “Why do people who don’t go to matches comment about people who don’t go to matches?”
Although the returned tickets and empty spaces promoted an overdue national debate about the issue involved – I dont expect things to change anytime soon.
Picture post
So as I have little to add to the millions of words already generated about the game this is a simple picture post.
Click any image to open a picture gallery that can be clicked or scrolled through
