The Iron fan who represented the club at the FA Cup has described the experience as “amazing”.
Vicky Woodcock was selected from all of the Scunthorpe applicants to sing Abide with Me at Wembley Stadium ahead of kick-off, which eventually saw Arsenal beat Aston Villa 4-0 to retain the trophy.Speaking about her experience, she said: “It was absolutely amazing.
“I don’t really think there’s a word to describe the experience as a whole. It’s definitely one of those things that I’ll never forget.
“I entered the competition through Songs of Praise – speaking about what the FA Cup final means to me. I wrote about being born on cup final day and being taken to games by my Granddad.”
United had a representative – as did every club who made the third round of the competition this season – with the Premier League clubs all receiving byes to the round, while the likes of non-league Southport, Blyth Spartans and Dover Athletic all had the honour following their team’s terrific exploits in the competition.
“The weekend as a whole was absolutely brilliant and everyone was a star,” she continued.
“I’m never going to forget it in my whole life and it meant so much to me and an awful lot to everybody else from the other teams. It was such a good group of people and we’ve all said we are going to stay in touch.
“It’s just one of those things that you think is never going to happen – and it’s certainly never going to happen again to me, so it was just brilliant.
“There were so many different people, different ages and background and jobs, but everyone got along so well. It was like we were an actual group – the FA Fan’s Choir 2015. We saw loads of people like Rio Ferdinand and Steve McManaman, who both spoke to us before we went out onto the pitch.
“The whole experience is quite surreal, thinking about it. It was such a mad weekend.”
The FA Cup final attendance was just short of 90,000, but Vicky insists walking out in front of that number of people and a Worldwide audience on the television didn’t phase her.
Shee added: “When you hear the football fans, you can’t help but smile when they’re singing with you and cheering with you.
“It’s better than being a player. We couldn’t lose the game, so it was incredible.”