16 April 2008
VIDEO: Final second leg - Manchester City 3-1 Chelsea

Manchester City lift The FA Youth after a thrilling win over Chelsea at Eastlands. Coming from behind to win 4-2 on aggregate.

3 April 2008
VIDEO: Final first leg - Chelsea 1-1 Manchester City

Watch the highlights from a thrilling game at Chelsea where Gael Kakuta's towering header cancelled out Daniel Sturridge's opener.

Manchester City

3-1

Chelsea

Mee 23, Weiss 34, Ball (pen) 86

(4-2 agg)

McGivern og 6

The FA Youth Cup Sponsored by E.ON
Final, Second Leg 
7.45pm, Wednesday 16 April 2008
City Of Manchester Stadium, Manchester City FC 

Manchester City lifted The FA Youth Cup for only the second time in their history on Wednesday night when they saw off opposition from Chelsea to seal victory in this competition and help erase the memory of their defeat to Liverpool in The Final two years ago.

City last won the competition back in 1986, whilst Chelsea were in their first Final for 47 years so both teams were understandably desperate to take the title for 2008.

With several members of the City team having been with the club for a number of years and raised locally, the team spirit of the home side was evident throughout and in the end, that courage helped them through a second half which saw Chelsea pile on the pressure in search of an equaliser.

Academy Director Jim Cassell, who has seen well over 20 players come through the City ranks to reach the first team in his 10 years with the club, had spoken before the game of his pride at how his players had come so far in the competition and he will have been delighted to have seen the young Blues succeed here in front of a home crowd.

Goals from skipper Ben Mee, who has been with the Blues for nine years, Vladimir Weiss and David Ball proved enough to see City lift the trophy in front of nearly 20,000 supporters at Eastlands.

It could have been so different too, as Chelsea made the perfect start to the game and took an early lead in only the sixth minute, when Jacob Mellis broke through from midfield and into the box. His shot was well saved by Greg Hartley, but the ball bounced off him and onto the unfortunate Ryan McGivern, who couldn’t prevent it from deflecting into the goal.

Manchester City: Greg Hartley, Kieran Trippier (Abdi Ibrahim, 90) Ryan McGivern, Dedryck Boyota (Angelos Tsiaklis, 82) Ben Mee, Scott Kay, Vladimir Weiss, Andrew Tutte, David Ball, Robbie Mak, David McDermott.

Subs not used: Alex Nimeley-Tchuimeni, Filip Mentel, James Poole.

Chelsea: Rhys Taylor, Seth Nana Ofori-Twumasi, Jeffrey Van Homoet Bruma, Patrick Van Aanholt, Benjamin Gordon (Frank Nouble, 72) Michael Woods, Miroslav Stoch, Jacob Mellis, Morten Nielsen (Adam Phillip, 54) Sergio Tejera Rodriguez, Gael Kakuta.

Subs not used: Haxhia, Thomas Taiwo, Jack Saville.

Attendance: 19,753