Southampton Supporters Set To Outnumber Manchester City At Wembley
Saturday, 25th Apr 2026 08:23
Each club in the FA Cup Semi Finals at Wembley this weekend received an allocation of 33,350 tickets for their respective games, Saints supporters snapped up their tickets and are likely to outnumber their City counterparts for the first of the semi finals.
Southampton are celebrating the 50th anniversary of their FA Cup final win over Manchester United this year, but an overlooked fact is that in that same 1975/76 season the League cup was won by Manchester City, who beat Newcastle United in the final at Wembley.
For over 35 years that was the last time either Saints or City won a major trophy, indeed at one stage the once great Manchester club were in League One but in 2008 things changed at Manchester City when they were bought out by their current owners and became one of the richest clubs in the World.
It took them a few years to win anything and in 2011, 35 years after they last lifted major silverware they won the FA Cup and then subsequently the Premier League title, the League cup and the Champions League in 2022/23.
However they have never quite managed to generate the global support that the likes of Manchester United, Liverpool, Real Madrid & Barcelona enjoy and indeed their own supporters appear to have become blasé to their success.
In the last 15 years they will have made over 20 visits to Wembley minimum, indeed there will only have been a couple of seasons at most, where they haven't made an appearance at the stadium in one competition or another.
So it seems that whilst Saints supporters are turning out in their droves, their Manchester City counterparts are not so enthusiastic.
There are no official numbers yet, but rumours in Manchester suggest that there are around 10,000 tickets unsold in their allocation.
Saints have sold their full allocation and received more tickets from the FA, some of which appear to have come from the City allocation, meaning that there will be around 37,000 Saints fans in the stadium officially.
There are excuses for Manchester City, the game is at 5.15pm, meaning that it will be difficult to make the last train back to London etc, but Manchester United & Liverpool supporters have never had to bring out that excuse when they play at the Stadium at a difficult time of the day.
So Southampton will win the first battle of the day, but of course the battle on the pitch will be a lot more difficult, Voltaire once sain "God is on the side of the big battalions" Saints will have the biggest battalion in the stands, but sadly football these days is about how much your owners have in the bank.
The fact that so called big football clubs cannot sell out big days such as an FA Cup semi final, perhaps tells you that it is time for change in football, time for a European Super League where the likes of Manchester City can generate more cash by playing clubs from across the continent.
If that happened and they left the Premier League, then few would mourn their departure, indeed it would lead to the rebirth of the game in England, where clubs such as Southampton and indeed Everton, Aston Villa & Tottenham Hotspur, traditionally big clubs, but who have been left behind in the past 15 years, could once again make genuine challenges for League titles and cups.
Would it devalue the Premier League or FA Cup, not in a million years, it would make them competitive again and that is the key to football flourishing in the future.
All Photos Via Reuters
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