Semi Final 

Kingsmeadow, Kingston-upon-Thames

Saturday 12th April 2025

Consecutive games at the same ground is not ideal for variety on the blog, but at this stage of the competition I am just happy to get a ticket given the importance of the match and the capacity of Kingsmeadow.

Chelsea go into the match as hot favourites but Liverpool will fancy themselves after springing a surprise 1-0 victory at Arsenal in the Quarter-Final.

The contest has been moved to a Saturday lunchtime kick off to allow for TV coverage with the game live on BBC One.

A beautiful spring morning and a stress free train journey via Berrylands station to mix up the trip from the previous round to the same stadium.

A very pleasant park land stroll into suburbia with an excellent bacon roll in the The Sunshine Bistro en route to Kingsmeadow.

Bonus today is the larger crowd means the South side of the ground is open and allows me a different perspective than the quarter final, and you know it's a big game when the 50/50 scarves are on sale!

Onto the contest itself.

An opening twenty minutes almost exclusively Chelsea, with a succession of corners all coming to nothing. It seemed a matter of time until the home side scored.

So it was against the run of play when an excellent ball from Maria Hobinger gave Olivia Smith a chance to outpace the Blues' back line. Smith showed exceptional control before calmly slotting past Hannah Hampton on 21 minutes.

Chelsea pressure eventually paying off with a deserved equaliser in added time from Erin Cuthbert. After great work on the right from Sandy Baltimore, her cross was recycled by Myra Ramirez allowing Cuthbert to clip the ball past Rachel Laws.

HT 1-1

Second half: To sum up; pretty much the entire half happened down Chelsea's right wing in the obscured view part of the ground for me!

So much Blues pressure without end result almost cost Chelsea. Liverpool's Taylor Hinds was so close with a cross/shot on 89 mins that Hampton just touched on to the crossbar with no Reds player following in to convert the chance.

The almost inevitable winning goal came in the fourth minute of added time. Great persistence and a cross teed up by Sandy Baltimore was headed home by Aggie Beevor-Jones to send Chelsea to Wembley.

FT: Chelsea 2 Liverpool 1