Women's Euros journey from 3,000 fans at Blackpool to an Old Trafford sell-out

The waiting is almost over.

Wednesday night sees the opening game of the delayed Women's European Championships take place in Manchester when England host Austria.

The 13th edition of the tournament should have taken place last summer but owing to the men's Euros and the Olympic Games both being pushed back 12 months, the decision was made to do the same for this event.

The build-up to the tournament, which will see 10 venues across England used, has been vast promotion and marketing and the fruits of that labour are set to be witnessed on Wednesday night when the opening game is played out to a backdrop of what will be a full-house at Old Trafford.

It will be some barometer to show how far women's football has come in a relatively short space of time. If you were to transport back to 2005 for the last time this event visited England, it was a very different kind of build-up and spectacle.

That summer's tournament consisted of just eight countries as opposed to double that number now. The entirety of the two-week event was spent in the North-west with the games played at Blackburn's Ewood Park, Blackpool's Bloomfield Road and Preston's Deepdale. Warrington's Halliwell Jones Stadium, normally associated with rugby league, was another to host matches whilst the relatively new City of Manchester Stadium (now Etihad) bizarrely hosted just one of the 15 games.

That was England's opener in a lively clash with Finland that attracted a crowd of over 29,000. Those in attendance certainly got their money's worth with Karen Carney scoring a last-minute winner in a frantic 3-2 win.

But, strangely, that game wasn't the grand opening for the tournament. Instead, what preceded it was a low-key curtain-raiser between Scandinavian rivals Sweden and Denmark in Blackpool. A relatively uneventful 1-1 draw was played out in front of just 3,231 at Bloomfield Road.

It wasn't the lowest turnout throughout the fortnight though, with just 957 hardy souls turning up the day after in Preston to see France beat Italy 3-1. But those involved with the bidding process and ensuring the tournament ran smoothly insist the event was something of an acid test.

In hindsight it merely laid the foundations for what would follow in the women's game in years to come. A tournament being held in England not only saw big crowds flocking to see the Lionesses in person but also attracted the mainstream media's attention with games being shown live on the BBC.

Bev Ward, who was the marketing and communications lead for the tournament, told the Athletic : "It really raised the profile of the game as a participation sport for girls. At the time, a lot of girls weren't choosing the opportunity to play football.

"Suddenly kids could see these players playing live on the BBC in front of these incredible crowds and it hugely raised the bar of the visibility of women's football. It's that old adage of you can't be what you can't see. We'd always had a challenge trying to get all the national press to come and cover the England team. Then suddenly every national newspaper carried a report. It was incredible and a lot of hard work went into that (the attendances for England games)."

England ultimately bowed out at the group stage in the 2005 edition but 17 years on, the women's game and the Lionesses are in rude health. Attendances at Women's Super League (WSL) games are on the up, all top flight clubs are now professional and media exposure of the game is at an all-time high thanks to partnerships with Sky, BT and the BBC.

Having reached the semi-finals in three successive major tournaments, Sarina Wiegman and her England side are now hoping to make that next logical step and lift a major trophy. Doing it on home soil, in front of full stands and on primetime TV, would be some way to deliver on the dreams formed in 2005.