LONDON (AFP) - Arsenal Ladies beat London rivals Chelsea Ladies 1-0 in the final of the Women's FA Cup in front of a competition record crowd of 32,912 at Wembley on Saturday.

Danielle Carter scored the only goal of the game with an excellent first-half shot.

Carter, 22, went past Hannah Blundell on the left corner of the penalty area before curling a shot beyond the reach of Chelsea goalkeeper Hedvig Lindahl after 18 minutes.

Lindahl made several good saves as Arsenal failed to get the second goal that would have helped put the result beyond doubt.

Chelsea had a number of chances to equalise and their best opportunity of the second half came with 20 minutes left when South Korean midfielder Ji So-Yun shot narrowly wide.

"It feels unbelievable. It is a dream come true," said victorious Arsenal manager Pedro Martinez Losa.

"I don't know how many new people came to the game today but we had the obligation to make them enjoy it, and probably the next time they see that they can come to a game they will want to come.

"I think that is the biggest (crowd) I have ever seen as a manager, we have the culture of football here." Chelsea kicked off having won four successive matches in the Women's Super League.

But their manager, Emma Hayes, said: "Congratulations to Arsenal, it was a fantastic performance and a reminder about how it is about a single game, it is not about an accumulation of games, it is not about recent form.

"It is about showing up and putting in a performance and I thought Arsenal did that today.

"I thought we were better in the second half. We slowly came into the game, created some chances. We had one or two where we could have capitalised but I have no complaints about the result."