Amex Stadium to host England international in June
International football is coming to Brighton this June with the Amex set to host England Women’s final warm up fixture ahead of this summer’s World Cup in France.
The Lionesses will face New Zealand at the stadium on Saturday 1st June as part of their ‘Road to France Series’, which also includes games against Canada at Manchester City‘s Academy Stadium, Spain at the Energy Check County Ground which is apparently what Swindon Town’s home is now known as and Denmark at Walsall’s Banks Stadium.
Tickets for the clash against New Zealand are priced at just £7.50 for adults when booked in advance and only £1 for concessions, which should hopefully guarantee a bumper crowd to send Phil Neville’s side off across the Channel.
England will be one of the favourites to lift their first ever women’s World Cup. They finished third in the last tournament in Canada back in 2015 and reached the semi finals of the European Championships in the Netherlands.
This will the second time that the Amex has hosted the Lionesses. They previously played at the stadium back in April 2014, hammering Montenegro 9-0.
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.
That game drew a crowd of 8,908. 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.
With no such fixture clash this time and an explosion in popularity of the women’s game in recent years, the Albion will be hoping to get decent numbers through the turnstiles.
It will be the start of a busy period of women’s football at the Amex. Brighton has been chosen as one of the host cities for the European Championship’s in 2021 with the stadium certain to secure some of the better ties as the second-best venue selected behind Wembley.
The Albion’s Women side are also on the rise. They’re competing against the best players in the country in the top tier of the Super League for the first time this season and sit just outside the relegation zone.
They’re coached by former England boss Hope Powell and with Ellie Brazil and Chloe Peplow both current members of the England Under 21 squad, it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that there could even be Seagulls in the Lionesses squad for the Euro’s in two years time.
This summer’s World Cup will come too soon for any Brighton inclusions, but it will still be a real treat to see the likes of Steph Houghton, Frank Kirby, Keira Walsh and Duggan at the Amex when New Zealand are in town this summer.
