Last weekend in lieux of the Premiership, I sat down to watch the 3rd round of the FA Cup. I must confess the FA Cup has not really been a part of consciousness for the last few years, due mainly to living abroad a lot over the past few years. To be honest i could not name you the last 5 FA Cup winners with any confidence. But nonetheless i was expecting to still see the FA Cup of my youth, where there was a genuine mystique and a humble class bout the trophy, the FA Challenge Cup, the only tournament in the world where part timers could play against the best teams in the country. Please dont get me wrong, this is not another one of those "things were better when i was a lad" type blogs, that just happens to be the way i see things with regards to the FA Cup, indeed i also think it was better before i was born too.
However what i saw both on the television coverage and with certain choices made by managers, made me begin to believe that the FA Cup, the most grand tradition in Engish sport, is dead. Firstly, when you get a side of the stature of Cardiff, who despite being top of the championship, are a small team outside of the Premiership, resting players you start to feel that nobody takes this competition seriously within the game, and while a cup run would be nice, but the league is the be all and end all. This is in stark contrast to the late 1980's and early 1990's when winning the FA Cup meant more than winning the league almost, and when the FA Cup final was the biggest game of the season, a tradition that has now become undermined by the fact clubs like Stoke and Norwich don't deem the trophy as worth their time and effort.
However in my opinion the worst thing about the whole weekend was the television coverage. I lost count of how many times this weekend i heard cliche after cliche trotted out about the "magic" of the cup and how many cepia montages were put together to show how this great institution continues to provide both entertainment and drama. This overegging of "giant killings" and famous moments as well as the endless endless commentary cliches and pleas for a new giant killing, to me deprived the cup and the round of both a dignity and humility which used to be synonomous with it. This sort of hyperbole I cannot stomach especially these days, I mean is it a shock to see Brighton beat Newcastles reserves at home????
However that is a mild annoyance in comparison to my biggest gripe with the whole weekend, sponsership. The whole weekend i felt like i was watching a giant advert. First of all there is no way that the FA Cup should be allowed to be called the FA Cup sponsered by Budweiser, ever ever ever ever. Then to be flashed both budweiser adverts and constant advert breaks at every available occasion was even worse, the BBC takes a lot of stick for its coverage, but one thing i love and will always love is that there are no adverts and there never will be and therefore it treated the tournament with the dignity it deserved. My wrath was also further stirred up whilst watching the Mnsfield v Liverpool game when a giant FA Cup mascot appeared on the screen, "thats quite good", I said, before the commentator revealed the mascots name was Buddy. Hmmm, "Buddy", why Buddy? oh yes, Buddy as in Budweiser, of course *barfs*. I consider acts such as this tantamount to prostitution of the cup and thats fine, if we want to go that way we can, but ITV and ESPN cannot then also play up the virtues of the grand old tournament where the humble part timers can play internationals on a dignified and level playing field at the same time, that reeks of hypocracy.
If the odlady is dead then who killed her? There are a myriad of culprits i believe, comercial tv, Manchester United going to play int he world club championship in 1999 but i think the inconvienient truth is, the Premier League killed her. The astronomical amouts of both money and prestiege you get in the premier league now means obviously that teams would rather finish 17th in the £40 million per seasn league than win the FA Cup, in short the Premier League has become the bee all and end all. It is not just the money earnt from the Premiership which has hurt but it is also the saturation of the sports channels with football, whereas pre 1992 there were very few games on tv except for the FA Cup now there are games on near enough every day, meaning 3rd round weekend is just another weekend now rather than being special.
In my opinion the ways to save the grand old tradition of British sport are no easy to come across but hre are some ways i think would help. First of all you have to make the tournament worth something, but i will need some help here. If Uefa goes ahead with its plan to join the Europa league and the Champions league then we can make winning the FA Cup more desirable to a lot of teams, as the FA can award a Champions league place to the winner, now im not talking an early stage place, im talking about a place in with the Champions league teams later in the tournament and 4th place in the Premiership would still be in the tournament, but they would have to qualify with the Europa teams for the final stages.
The next step for me would be to restore the dignity of the trophy. Make the games free to air so that the BBC can rightfully cover them and also get rid of the advertising, i mean the advertising of the trophy itself. In the day and age where the Premiership is the most watched league in the world and is wortth over a billion pounds per season surely it can afford to subsidise the FA Cup so that it doesnt have to prostitute itself to Budwieser and Aoen? However i fear that these mesaures will not be bought in because in truth, the Premiership is worth so much money now that the powers that be no longer care about the FA Cup, or the tradition, the old lady is dead, and with her, so are a lot of memories.
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