Amex Stadium part of England’s bid for Euro 2021
European Championship football could be coming to the Amex if the FA are successful in their bid to host Euro 2021.
The decision as to who hosts the next Women’s European Championship will be taken by UEFA in early December. England’s bid is up against submissions from Austria and Hungary.
The Amex has hosted women’s international football previously. Mark Sampson took charge of the Lionesses for the first time as they hammered Montenegro 9-0 in April 2014.
The lovely Toni Duggan scored a hat-trick that day along with goals from Eniola Aluko, Jill Scott, Karen Carney, Demi Stokes and Natasha Dowie. There was even an own goal for good measure.
The game drew a crowd of 8,908 to the stadium. All the while, there were several hundred of us who’d traipsed all the way to Barnsley for the most boring 0-0 imaginable, wishing we’d stayed at home to cheer on England.
Besides Wembley, the Amex looks comfortably the best stadium in the bid, which should put it in a good position to host some marquee games.
The other stadiums involved are Manchester City’s Academy Stadium where City’s women’s team currently play, Brentford’s new ground, Bramall Lane, the New York Stadium, Stadium m:k, Meadow Lane and the Abax Stadium which is apparently what London Road is now known as.
The England side would enter the tournament as one of the favourites having reached the last four of both the 2015 World Cup held in Canada and the most recent edition of the Euros, held in 2017 in the Netherlands.
That success has seen a huge growth in the popularity of women’s football – and not just among volunteers on a local radio station who are desperate to prove their left-wing credentials.
Over 45,000 watched Chelsea lift the FA Cup at Wembley in May and four million tuned in for the Lionesses Euro 2017 semi final defeat against the Dutch.
The Albion’s Women side are also on the rise. They’ll compete in the top tier of the Super League for the first time this season against the likes of Steph Houghton’s City and Jordan Nobb’s Arsenal.
They’re coached by former England boss Hope Powell and having signed some talented young English players such as Jodie Brett, it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that there could even be Seagulls in the Lionesses squad in three years time.
A Brighton player scoring the winning goal for England in a European Championship semi final at the Amex? That’s a dream, right there
