As you probably know already, our FA Cup semi- final against Chelsea kicks off at 3pm on Sunday. And if you didn’t manage to get your hands on a ticket, it’s live on TNT Sports.

Wembley has been designated as ‘public transport venue’, mainly because the new stadium is much larger than the one it replaced, so there is even less room to provide parking on-site. Unless you’ve already pre-booked parking at Wembley (at a cost of £50) don’t attempt to drive all the way to the stadium, as there is a residents-only parking zone covering a radius of one and a half miles around the stadium, which will be strictly enforced.

You could park at an outlying tube station, the best option being Stanmore at the end of the Jubilee line, which is less than two miles from junction 4 of the M1.The last time we came to these parts Wembley’s website recommended park at one of the following Chiltern Line railway stations - Warwick Parkway, Banbury, Bicester North , or High Wycombe, then getting the train to Wembley stadium station.

Another option would be to park at Milton Keynes central or Watford Junction stations and catch the train to Wembley Central. If you’re going the whole way by train you’ll need to get the metropolitan or jubilee line to Wembley Park, though an alternative is to walk from Kings Cross to Euston and get the stopping service to Wembley Central.

As we’ve been allocated the west end of the stadium, the best options for pubs are the ‘Green Man’ in Dagmar Avenue (less than half a mile away) , the ‘White Horse’, which is practically outside the stadium in Wembley Park Boulevard, and ‘The Arch’, just south of Wembley stadium station in Harrow Road.

It goes without saying that food and drink inside the stadium will be ridiculously expensive. But there is always the excitement of the 'fan park' outside. Food-wise, there are quite a few takeaways along the High Road from Wembley Central, and close to Wembley Park tube station.

The new Wembley was originally due to be ready by 2006 (and was the centrepiece of England’s unsuccessful bid to host the World Cup that year) but in the event it wasn’t finally completed till a year later. Much of the delay was down to the bickering between a certain Ken Bates, (who was in charge of the project at one time) and the then sports minister Kate Hoey, who wanted the stadium to include a running track.

Bates wanted to incorporate all sorts of hotel and leisure facilities as part of the project, as a larger version of his Chelsea Village, but was removed from his post by the FA after the estimated costs started to run out of control. Thank god he never had time to go through with the similar plans he had to develop the land around Elland Road!

By the time the stadium was eventually completed it was well over budget, and at £798 million it was the most expensive stadium ever built! Hence the football authorities desire to stage as many games here as they can, in a desperate attempt to be able to pay for it all! Wembley’s official website has all sorts of interesting facts about the stadium. The footprint is 103,000 square metres, it is built from 212,000 tonnes of concrete, and it has 14 km of fibre optic cable.

There are 688 refreshment kiosks, though due to “the responsible sale of alcohol”, you are limited to two overpriced drinks per transaction. Thankfully there are 2,618 toilets, (more than any other venue in the world) which are in a much better condition than those we had to wade through at the old stadium. The sliding roof can cover the whole stadium, and that huge arch (which is bigger than the London Eye) helps to support the weight of the roof.

The stadium has a capacity of 90,000 (the largest in the world with every seat under cover) and our allocation is 33,350, including 100 wheelchair bays and easy-access seats for ambulant fans. The adult prices range from £30 to a whacking £150, and it would have been nice if the ballot application process had allowed fans to specify a maximum price they could afford. But it didn’t.

The price for the relatively cheap seats seems almost reasonable, but they are right up in the heavens, where you’re at such a high angle that at times it makes it difficult to judge what is happening on the pitch. Corporate hospitality is always a temptation for the rich and desperate, but packages for our match start at £799, compared to only £209 for the other semi.

Which is undoubtedly because Man City fans go to Wembley so often that they can hardly be bothered. I’ve seen similar comments online about Chelsea fans, but to get even a sniff of a ticket in their section you would at least need to be one of their members, preferably with loyalty points. At least their website has the decency to advise that those suffering from vertigo shouldn’t get tickets in level 5!

If you’re wondering what happened to the 23,300 seats that haven’t gone to the two clubs, they are in the corporate areas, the ones opposite the TV cameras that are usually empty. The FA made the executive parts of the stadium so large as another part of their efforts to claw back some of the huge amounts of money they spent in building the damn thing in the first place.

I only hope that we can get a win to make this all worthwhile, so we can come back and do this all again in a month’s time.

Some of this stuff came from www.footballgroundguide.com.

Photo: Action Images via Reuters