Surrey, Sussex, Herts and Bucks were sad places after the FA Cup Semi-Final but Manchester was celebrating as Man City defeated Man United 1-0 to reach the final for 30 years.Yaya Toure demonstrated power and poise to take advantage of Michael Carrick's mistake to score after 52 minutes and set up another Wembley date against Stoke City in May.
United controlled the first half-hour and Dimitar Berbatov - in for the suspended Wayne Rooney - missed two golden chances in the space of seconds early on.
United, who had Paul Scholes sent off late on for a wild challenge on Pablo Zabaleta, paid the price as City finally gathered momentum to end as deserved winners and sabotage Sir Alex Ferguson's hopes of repeating the historic treble-winning season of 1999.
City threatened through Mario Balotelli, Joleon Lescott and Vincent Kompany before Toure made the breakthrough, with United's only serious second-half response a deflected free-kick from Nani that keeper Joe Hart touched on to the bar.
Afterwards Balotelli incited United's travelling fans before they hit the tube home, Rio got upset and United's FA Cup dream was in ruins.
For Stoke, it is their first ever FA Cup Final in their 148-year history - America was in the height of it's civil war whilst people in Stoke made china plates during the week and watched football at weekend. How, er civil!
Man City v Stoke City has a nice ring to it, and for the first time in many years I might actually sit down and watch the game.
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