While the two sides competing are at the very top of their game, organisers of women’s football across the Bristol area are hoping the match will help attract more to try the beautiful game.

Here in Bristol, women’s football is rapidly gaining in popularity. The Easton Cowgirls started in 2002 with just two members. Now with 40 to 60 women regularly playing, the Cowgirls play in national and international tournaments.

Zoe Gibbon of the Cowgirls said: “It’s absolutely fantastic that Bristol is hosting the finals which showcases the best of women’s football…I’m sure that women will go and see the match and be really excited and want to get involved in football themselves.

“We’re at the other end of the scale and play grass roots community football which anyone can get involved with.

“While we are a really successful club we struggle to find other teams to play against locally and we’d love women to be inspired by the FA cup and go out and set up their own teams.

“For years women were actively stopped from playing football and currently there is a small pool of women playing the sport for enjoyment.

“However this is set to change and, as football is taught in schools to girls, there is going to be an explosion of women playing in the next few years.”

Fitting football round work and the family can often be the biggest challenge for women returning to football or setting up their own teams. New five-a-side leagues such as TNFive have been set up to try and encourage players to set up their own competitive leagues easily and cost effectively.

Sarah Amos, who co-founded the league, said: “We know there are a lot of women out there who would love to play competitive five-a-side but may find it hard to find enough women to play alongside.

“Added to that, family or work commitments mean that they often struggle to play at the same time week in, week out. TN5 is the perfect solution and we’re hoping for a great take-up by female five-a-siders.”

“My real bug bear,” says Zoe Gibbon, “is this morning I watched the sport news and there was lots and lots of sport on but nothing on the women’s FA cup final – we need to promote women’s football more as a really exciting game for women to get involved in.”

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The captain watched on in anguish from the sidelines as Blues fell to Blackpool in the semi-finals, 3-2 on aggregate.

It was a thrilling second leg at St Andrews, when Blues came back from 2-0 adrift to level. And they then looked well set to complete a remarkable recovery with Blackpool rocking.

But it was not to be and Carr, who had a knee injury at the time, was left to lament.

“I always felt we had the players to do it, in the end we just couldn’t get across the line,” he said.

“The game at Blackpool killed us. I really fancied us there. They’ve got a few players who can cause you trouble, but I felt we had the lads who could go for it and get the result.

“But we didn’t perform like we know we can, so it all came down to St Andrews.

“To get the two goals back like we did at home was incredible, it was a great effort because it looked all over. I felt we would go on and win it too but we couldn’t quite do it.

“Everyone was absolutely gutted. It had been a long season and to get that close to the final and go out like that . . .

“And I really felt for lads like Chris Burke, who have been trying to get into the Premier League. What a season he had. I’d not really seen much of him before and I didn’t realise he was that good, he was fantastic.”

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With Blues in such a financial mess and seemingly lacking direction from those in Hong Kong, Savage wondered just what Hughton has to look forward to at St Andrews.

Hughton is a top Baggies target to replace Roy Hodgson.

He has told those around him that he is happy at Blues and is not of a mind to simply walk away.

And Blues would be hostile to any formal approach.

But Albion see an ideal opportunity to try and tempt him because of owner Carson Yeung’s woes and the uncertainty surrounding the club.

And Savage said he could see Hughton making the short journey across the city, the way things stand currently.

“I was at Wembley on Saturday with the previous owners of Birmingham, David Sullivan, David Gold and Karren Brady, for the play-off final,” said Savage.

“Their club West Ham have gone up and they deserve it, over the course of the season.

“But you look at what’s happened at Birmingham since they left and it’s incredible.

“One thing you could say about them when they were at Birmingham was that there was always stability. They were always sound financially.

“Now, although I don’t know the ins and outs exactly, it’s obviously not good at Birmingham in that respect.

“Since winning the Carling Cup they’ve been relegated, lost Alex McLeish – although he has since gone from Villa – and Chris Hughton came in.

“Chris has done miracles this season. Birmingham had a chance of getting promotion in the play-offs but didn’t quite make it.

“I wouldn’t blame Chris if he now went to a stable club in Albion, a well run club.

“All you want as a manager is a chance, that stability, and a good relationship with your owners.

“I think he’d get that at Albion and it wouldn’t surprise me if he went there.”

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But as he forged a coalition with Lib Dem leader John Hemming in 2004, few thought the partnership would last this long.

Ironically the decline of their fortunes and the fightback by Labour started in 2010, just as at a national level a new Tory-Lib Dem coalition took shape.

Like that national coalition, Birmingham’s marriage of Tories and Lib Dems was a result of prevailing national factors, in their case the 2003 Iraq War, and a mutual distrust of Labour following its failure to deal with the inner-city vote fraud scandal.

And in 2004, despite being leader of the largest party, Labour’s Sir Albert Bore, found himself out in the cold as Whitby realised that his Tory group would be the senior partner in coalition with the Lib Dems.

Coun Whitby said: “I think Labour took our partnership for granted but I found it easy to deal with John Hemming. We forged a progressive partnership of independent political parties.”

It is also worth remembering that the council they inherited had been performing poorly, with its housing department in danger of direct Government intervention after building up a backlog of 49,000 repairs and its social services department failing.

That’s not to say that Labour did not have a few projects in the pipeline – a new £160 million library had been planned and designed for the new Eastside Park and the UK’s largest private finance initiative deal to maintain Birmingham’s roads was being drawn up.

The new Progressive Partnership set out with the priority of keeping council tax rises at a below inflation 1.9 per cent each year, which they did until the Government ordered a freeze in 2011 and 2012. They also aimed to raise the ratings of the council’s failing departments, to improve efficiency and improve “quality of life” ratings.

It was sometimes felt that Coun Whitby was too remote from the day-to-day services, such as recycling and bin collections, housing, schools, social care, and that his focus was on big projects – the airport extension, New Street Station, city centre development and, of course, the Library of Birmingham.

He would argue that his cabinet were capable people. Housing, under the firebrand Tory John Lines, and social care, under the effective Lib Dem Sue Anderson, were soon performing better. Even education has seen modest improvements in exam results after years of treading water.

But a key failure has been children’s social services, where cases like the tragic starving to death of Khyra Ishaq highlighted severe shortcomings in the department. Special focus was placed on the division, but it is still too early to assess the impact of a top-down reorganisation in the light of those criticisms.

There have also been, in the last four years, clashes with the workforce, particularly refuse collectors, as efficiency drives have targeted what the council saw as generous working practices and terms and conditions. Some of these had left the city open to hefty equal pay claims which could yet run into hundreds of millions of pounds.

Coun Whitby sees his successes as the major projects and marketing of the city abroad – particularly the Middle East, India and China – to attract and keep investment. He would highlight the visit to Birmingham last year of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao as a sign of that blossoming trade relationship.

“We have 73 per cent satisfaction ratings and projects in the pipeline which will bring 100,000 jobs. We have cleaned the streets and transformed the image of Birmingham,” he says.

He can reel off a long list of projects – the Big City Plan, Alexander Stadium development, the £20 million loan to Warwickshire County Cricket Club to develop Edgbaston, leading the New Street Station steering group toward the £650 million Gateway scheme – and claims the controversial High Speed Rail 2 line would never have had a branch line from Birmingham International into the city centre without his council’s lobbying.

But it is with the £187 million Library of Birmingham that he will be most closely linked. It remains to be seen how much the sale of the old Central Library site in Paradise Circus will raise to offset the cost of the new library to the taxpayer.

“I was determined to get a world class library in the city centre,” he said.

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BIRMINGHAM City Council’s chief executive has written to his 50,000 staff to tell them about a petition to re-open the investigation into the Birmingham pub bombings.

Stephen Hughes said it was up to council employees whether or not they signed the online plea to the Government set up by Julie Hambleton, a university lecturer whose 18 year-old sister Maxine was one of the 21 killed in the 1974 explosions.

Julie joined protesters from across the country in a demonstration to get more support for the petition at Birmingham’s Bullring yesterday.

It is hoped that Mr Hughes’ memo will boost the campaign calledJustice4the21.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army was widely blamed for the attack but never formally claimed responsibility.

Six people, known as the Birmingham Six, were found guilty of bomb attack and spent 17 years in prison before their convictions were quashed by a Court Of Appeal judgment in 1991.

Following their release from jail, West Midlands Police said it had ceased investigating the tragedy and no one has since been convicted.

Birmingham Six member Paddy Hill is one of the 1,500 people who have signed the petition, which needs to attract 100,000 signatories by December 1 before the issue can be raised in Parliament.

Mr Hughes’ note reads: “You will all be aware that 38 years ago bomb blasts in the centre of the city killed 21 people. No one stands convicted of those murders. These were traumatic events for Birmingham that will live long in our collective memory and has had a profound effect on the city.

“A campaign group, consisting of relatives of the murdered people and others, is seeking to have the investigation into the murders re-opened with a view to identifying and convicting the perpetrators.

“The council does not have a formal policy position on the issue, but I have discussed the issue with the leaders of the main political parties. On this occasion, and without either taking a view on the merits of the petition or about how other similar requests will be dealt with, they agree that I should bring the campaign and the petition to your attention. It is of course entirely up to you whether you wish to support the petition or not.”

A council spokesman said the email was an “unusual step” for the local authority to take but that it was simply publicising the appeal rather than actively supporting it.

Julie, aged 49, said: “How can it be right in our society that murderers can be allowed to walk free. It sends out the message that people can come to Birmingham and kill anyone without retribution.”

Julie said technological advances in forensics and the evidence of the Birmingham Six could open new lines of inquiry which could finally lead to convictions and closure for the families affected.

To sign the petition, click on: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/24443

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Parent company Birmingham International Holdings Limited were expected to release figures to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange by close of business today.

But sources have indicated to the Birmingham Mail that a couple of minor issues still need to be cleared up, causing the slight delay.

Blues’ acting chairman Peter Pannu revealed on the night of the Championship play-off semi-final second leg that BIHL had told him the accounts ‘should be published very soon and in any event before the play-off final’, which takes place tomorrow.

Supporters were naturally relieved to hear that, at last, Blues were to disclose the state of their finances for the year ending June, 2011.

The accounts had already been delayed on three occasions, and this caused the Football League to slap a transfer embargo on Blues as they failed to file them by the required March 1 date, as per their regulations.

Once the accounts are published, the embargo should be lifted a few days afterwards once the League are satisfied.

The summer transfer window opens on July 1, although clubs do arrange deals once the season has finished to come into effect formally on that date.

It is understood the accounts will show a hefty loss as Blues brought in the likes of Nikola Zigic, Ben Foster, Curtis Davies and spent heavily on wages for Aleksandr Hleb, David Bentley, Matt Derbyshire and Obafemi Martins, among others, in the period covered.

And Pannu admitted in his programme notes for the Blackpool match ‘let us not expect a very rosy picture’.

But he also stressed they were not as bad people were portraying ‘based on rumours’ and that the club was ‘not close to bankruptcy’.

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The City Council approved extending the original six-month halt, which gives it until at least October to approve new rules.

“I am very elated that my colleagues saw fit to address this massive problem that has taken advantage of the underserved in our community,” said Councilwoman Lashunda Scales, chairwoman of the council’s Economic Development Committee, who proposed the original ordinance. “The time extension is to make certain that all i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed so that we will not have to revisit this issue again.”

The council in December established the moratorium and extended those restrictions without discussion Tuesday.

The ordinance approved in December included an amendment stating that that city’s economic development division and its planning and zoning officials would work during the moratorium on ways to curb “clustering” once the moratorium was lifted.

Scales has been a strong critic of the payday lending industry, saying Birmingham has too many of the businesses, which she said prey on vulnerable residents and lock them into a cycle of debt. In addition, Scales and others said too many payday lending businesses together discourage other businesses from locating in the areas where they operate.

Councilwoman Valerie Abbott, chairwoman of the Planning and Zoning Committee, said the extra time is enough to present suggestions, including spacing. The original moratorium was set to expire in June.

“What we’ve been doing is working on a possible modification to the zoning ordinance that would deal mostly with the concentration of these business in certain parts of town and the impact it would have,” said Abbott, whose district includes a number of payday lending businesses along Greensprings Highway. “We got down to the wire and still didn’t have something we felt comfortable taking to the entire council.”

Payday lending industry officials have consistently defended their business, saying they provide a necessary service that is unfairly characterized.

“We aren’t surprised by the extension,” said Max Wood, President of Borrow Smart Alabama, the industry’s trade group. “We are, however, disappointed that the council has not made any attempt to work with the industry to identify a long-term solution to what they believe is a problem. We hope that the City Council will take the next few months to truly review potential solutions working with everyone at the table – including the industry.”

Birmingham’s ordinance was modeled after one passed last summer in Midfield that limited the number of payday lending institutions to the current 12. In addition, Center Point in March renewed its long-standing moratorium on payday lending and title loan businesses.

Birmingham’s moratorium also generated more interest in the issue. The new federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in January chose Birmingham to hold its first field hearing on payday lending. Bureau officials cited the council’s moratorium along with Alabama’s ranking among states with the most payday lenders.

Councilwoman Kim Rafferty later called a meeting to form Bank on Birmingham, a clearinghouse of available institutions willing to provide services and insight to those now using high-interest and high-fee payday lending and check cashing businesses.

“As a local government it would be wise for us to continue to work with the federal government and the state Legislature to protect our citizens from predatory lending while forcing banking institutions to become more flexible in their lending practices,” Scales said.

Wood said it is difficult to measure the impact of the city’s moratorium but said it has helped some businesses by limiting competition and hurt others by driving up rental costs. “We certainly don’t believe it has served to help Birmingham recruit other types of businesses as they said it would,” he said. 

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Our chief sports writer Colin Tattum asked the what they would like to see happen at St Andrews after this season ended in a near miss in the Championship play-offs.

The replies came through thick and fast. Here is a selection:

@dowskiebcfc Hoping for stability at #bcfc finacially, keep Chris Hughton, carry on playing good football and bring a few new faces in.

@b1c8f7c5 New owners a must. Then give Chris Hughton a new three-year contract and some money to spend. #blues #bcfc

@dean_kavanagh Board must keep Hughton. He seems like a man of character and has a job to finish at #bcfc, think he’ll stay with provisos.

@almajir If the board can’t keep Pannu’s promises from Wednesday of delivering the accounts this week they should go.

@melcastle69 keeping hold of Chris Hughton is a must- invest in a good/right manager and the team will follow.

@Roberto_1875 Simple…. Hughton to stay. Anything else is a bonus.

@robertwildey Blues need to keep hold of Hughton, that would be bigger than any new signing.

@ashcolgan23 CH must stay & be able to builD on good squad we’ve got & not lose top players like Davies. Maybe bring Townsend back in.

@mike1983jabbari I’d love Hughton to stay but would not go potty if he left. His record against the better sides is questionable & should be top 6.

@BCFCJON1875 New owners that have a genuine long term plan for the club. New contract for Chris Hughton. Keep the likes of Burke & Davies!

@ClinicallyMad Even with no money it shows what a great coach Hughton is, he is vital to club, ball winning midfielder and keep Burke, Davies.

@jon72bcfc Very simple, support CH and let him finish the job. Less games next season will help too. #kro

@ nealbcfc hope for a much quieter summer than last – tie CH down, no major outgoings and a few solid acquisitions to improve.

@paulinghana Keep Chris Hughton, new owners, avoid administration, get rid of Zigic, keep as much of the rest of the squad as possible.

@bcfcjames Give CH money to add to squad. Let him keep best players for another season and offer CH and staff improved deals.

@jacobchatwin Need to keep Murphy, promote Butland to no1, sign some experienced players and most importantly keep CH! #bcfc

@arch_stanton67 @colintattum I hope( yourself excepted) that our local paper will stop printing stories telling our manager he should quit.

@9_Hendo The embargo needs lifting or we’ll lose players & can’t replace. 2. Ideally keep Hughton and spine of team (CD, CB, KF, MK)

@braderzzzbcfc Keep hold of CH, the back 4 and Burke, need a decent striker along with King.

@molliesaunt Keeping CH as manager has to be key, and new owners would be nice!!

@LeeAHinton Hope the spine of team and Hughton stay. Hopefully we can kick on next season and make a push for the Premier League.

@stu_mez Priorities: keep our manager. Keep all our players except Ben Foster whom we should cash in on. Looking fwd to next season.

@ReissSadler I really hope Hughton stays and our finances sorted, really need to keep on a few loanees such as Myhill and N’Daw.

@adamneaves Personally, i just want some stability to the club. Maybe new owners and also keeping the players at the club is crucial.

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Thorp Street was sealed off after the incident

A murder investigation has been launched after a man was found stabbed in a street in Birmingham city centre.

The man was found in Thorp Street, near the Hippodrome theatre, late on Saturday evening, police said.

The man, who has not yet been identified but is believed to be aged 46, was taken to hospital but died a short time later.

A post-mortem examination is yet to take place. Thorp Street was cordoned off for forensic examination.

Det Ch Insp Wayne Jones, who is leading the investigation, appealed for a taxi passenger to contact police again.

“We are unclear of the motive at this stage and are keeping an open mind as to how the man has come by his injuries,” he said.

“We have already spoken to a number of witnesses one of whom was a taxi driver, we are also keen to trace and speak to two further potential witnesses.

“The first is a woman who we believe was a passenger in the taxi and the second is an individual, who we believe to be a man, who was in the street at the time of the attack.”

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