Stonewall FC and Friday's opponents Wilberforce Wanderers are the first non-league teams invited by the FA to play a competitive regular-season league fixture at Wembley
Tuesday 27 November 2018 11:48, UK
Stonewall FC's players are still in a state of disbelief that they will be running out for a league fixture at Wembley Stadium this week.
Stonewall FC were the first gay men's football team in the UK when they were established in 1991 and are now the world's most successful LGBT-inclusive club. They play in Middlesex County Football League Division One, 12 divisions below the Football League.
They play Wilberforce Wanderers at the national stadium on Friday night to celebrate a new partnership forged between the Football Association and LGBT equality charity Stonewall, which organises the Rainbow Laces campaign.
"It hasn't quite sunk in for me personally," Stonewall FC manager Eric Najib Armanazi told Sky Sports News.
"It's going to be a very strange feeling, leading the team out. It's going to be the proudest feeling of my career but I know this doesn't happen without the FA, without Stonewall, and without the Middlesex County Football League. I'm very conscious of that.
"I'm also very proud of all the players past and present at Stonewall Football Club.
"This has been 28 years in the making for us as a football club and here's to the next 28 years, and to a fantastic day on Friday for football, for the Middlesex League, for the FA, and for both teams."
Stonewall FC player James Baker added: "It's just the excitement of being sat there in that changing room where the Rooneys, the Sterlings and the Neymars have all been, in the same place.
"Walking out and seeing family and friends in that environment is also going to be emotional as well. It will literally be mind-boggling, where you are excited, you are nervous and you are also really proud of what you have done, and what you and your friends have achieved.
"And hopefully when the whistle goes, it will be head on to football, but it will be very difficult to do that and focus at Wembley. Just saying it is ridiculous!"
Sky Sports is a member of TeamPride and supports Stonewall's Rainbow Laces campaign, which is currently receiving its annual activation across British sport to December 6.
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