England’s Women will take on Sweden in a summer international at Hartlepool’s Victoria Park stadium, it has been confirmed.
Sweden, who are fifth in the FIFA rankings, will face England on Sunday 3 August (KO 2pm) - in a break from their World Cup qualifying campaign.
Tickets are on sale now and priced at £5 for adults and £2.50 for children and concessions.
England v Sweden
Women's international
Victoria Park, Hartlepool
2pm, Sunday 3 August
Tickets on sale now
England are eight matches into their 2015 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign - and kept their 100 per cent record intact after beating Ukraine on Thursday at Arena Lviv.
On England's August opponents head coach Mark Sampson, said: “Sweden are a very strong side, so it’s always good to take the opportunity to pit ourselves against teams like that and test ourselves.
“If we qualify for Canada, we’ll be playing against the best in the world and matches such as these are key to the development of the team.
“We’ve got a lot of players from the north-east England in this squad and they’ve wanted us to play up there for a while. They tell me we’ll get a great reception and how vocal the fans are, so we want to put on a good performance in Hartlepool.”
England midfielder Jill Scott, who is from Sunderland, said: “They love their football in the north-east, it’s all people talk about – and it’s not just men’s football, it’s women’s football as well.
“Even before they were in the FA WSL, Sunderland Women were getting crowds of up to 1,000 so hopefully we can get a full house at Hartlepool and hopefully there will be more England fixtures in the north-east to come.
Hartlepool's Victoria Park has a capacity of just under 8,000
“There’s loads of England players from the area - me, Demi Stokes, Lucy Bronze and Steph Houghton for example. So I think you can see that the north-east breeds some good players and hopefully there will some of them on show when we take on Sweden.”
Hartlepool United chief executive, Russ Green expressed his own delight in the news, and added: “We’re extremely honoured to be hosting another international fixture at Victoria Park.
“The club has been proud to have played host to England U18s in the past and we’re delighted that we’re now going to see a full women’s international game take place here. I think it’s great that The Football Association are keen to come back to The Vic and use our facilities once again and, of course, play on one of the best pitches in the country.
“It’s prestigious for the football club to be hosting such a fixture so we are hoping that as many Pools fans as possible can come along and support England at The Vic.”
Tickets for England v Sweden are priced at £5 for adults and £2.50 for children and concessions.
A family ticket is available at £10 (two adults and two children) and group booking discounts also apply.
Tickets are available via 01429 272 584 (option 2) via TheFA.com's ticketing page, at the Hartlepool United ticket office or by emailing tickets@hartlepoolunited.co.uk.
