The weirdest Wembley final ever
FA Trophy 2020: an EFL outfit against a team with no fixtures
It’s often said that the road to Wembley is long, but it’s rarely as much of a schlep as it has been for the 2020 FA Trophy finalists.
Last year’s non- league showpiece has finally been booked for May 3, a full 20 months after the competition began in September 2019, but the weirdness doesn’t end there.
The Trophy is reserved for non- league clubs, and Harrogate Town were a National League team when they won their quarter- final tie at AFC Fylde in February 2020. But the semi- final with Notts County was postponed because of the pandemic – by the time it was played in September, they’d risen to the Football League after beating Notts in the play- off final.
They’ll now become the first EFL side ever to contest the FA Trophy final, visiting Wembley on a Monday three days after a League Two home game against Cambridge. They’ve even held faint hopes of promotion to League One.
It’s a daunting task for opponents Concord Rangers, who won’t have played a match for three months. After reaching the final without facing a National League club, the Essex outfit sat near the bottom of National League South when it was curtailed in mid- February.
“At one point it was looking unlikely that the final would ever be played, from what I heard,” Concord midfielder James Blanchford tells FFT.
“We were worried we’d never get the chance to play, so when we found out we would, you can imagine how happy everyone was.”
The Beach Boys take their name from nearby Concord Beach in Canvey Island, and the side has experienced a sizeable turnover since they kicked off their Trophy run in November 2019. “We haven’t trained since February,” admits Blanchford. “Hopefully we’ll be able to practise and get some friendlies in before the final, but I don’t know if that’s doable.”
For Harrogate, manager Simon Weaver can now claim to be the longest serving boss in the Football League, having been appointed back in 2009. But the Trophy remains a big priority.
“It’s a competition that’s worth winning,” he says. “People may say, ‘ You entered into it as a non- league team and you’re not now, so it’s surely down the pecking order’, but we want to finish as high as we can in League Two and win the FA Trophy as well. If we do that, it will have been a fantastic season.”
But it’s the supporters Weaver feels for. They missed the Sulphurites’ play- off final victory at Wembley and are set to watch this game from home, too. “It’s wretched for the fans, because who knows when Harrogate Town might reach another final or get to experience Wembley?” he sighs. “The club has been around for more than 100 years, and it wasn’t until 2020 that we got anywhere near Wembley. On one hand we’re delighted to have the game; on the other it feels like a loss not to have our fans with us.”
That’s a feeling we can all relate to, Simon.