The Magic of the FA Cup?
It’s one of English footballs’ favourite cliches and it’s one you will probably hear and see repeated ad infinitum during the course of this weekend.
Third round FA Cup day, or days as it is now, is traditionally the one on which the magic of the FA Cup is at its’ most powerful. It is the day on which all the big boys enter to take their places among the wonderful assortment of ragamuffin lower and non league outfits to have made it through the early stages.
It is the time when David gets to sling some shot at Goliath and everyone across the country, (unless they happen to follow in Goliath’s footsteps) hopes to see David’s stone find its’ mark and send the giant tumbling down and out.
The FA Cup hasn’t gained its’ magical worldwide reputation on the potential of a few early embarrassments for the bigger clubs, however. Historically the magic of the competition lay in the basic truth of its’ underlying principle.
The FA Cup is supposed to be the great leveller. It is the competition basically anyone can enter and take their chances against the biggest and best in the country and, theoretically, come out on top.
It is the ultimate sporting, or at least footballing, democracy.
No wonder people have loved it through the years and continue to do so now. It encapsulates footballs’ great universal appeal and simplicity.
Anyone who’s ever kicked a ball knows, that while generally it will fly high or wide, (or worse still it will have been the turf you booted) if it’s your day then it’s heading straight for the top corner at a million miles an hour, and there’s nothing that Gordon Banks, Peter Shilton and Rachel Brown put together can do about it and you are, in that moment, the hero of the hour.
That is what the FA Cup has meant to so many people for so long and is why it has made household names of so many people who would otherwise have remained unknown.
That is why Ronnie Radford is still a name known by football fans the length and breadth of the country. When he ran across that muddy field and slammed in that 35 yard missile against Newcastle all those years ago for Hereford he simply proved what every would-be footballer has always known; that we too could be the hero, if we just happened to be in the right place at the right time and made the right contact with that bloody ball.
And the FA Cup is the competition that makes it all possible.
Traditionally the FA Cup has also offered the possibility for real glory to the more unsung elements in English football. While the teams starting out in August who are about 37 games away from Wembley are never realistically going to end up beneath the twin towers, the cup has been a competition which many clubs start out believing they have a genuine chance of reaching the last eight of, or the last four and then, as we all traditionally know, anything can happen.
It is a competition that has harboured and provoked such dreams and excitement and, on many occasions, it has actually delivered on its’ inherent promises. It has thrilled and captivated generations and truly earned its’ place in the hearts of the nation.
There are probably many people who feel that the magic of the FA Cup is not so obvious any more, however. It is hard not to subscribe to that view in fact.
It is likely that the people quickest to remind you about the magic of the FA Cup now are the television broadcasters who desperately want you to watch their product. Cynics might suggest that their enthusiasm is not absolutely genuine and question whether they might possibly sell their parents as well as their souls if there was a profit in it.
The question is then, does the FA Cup still possess the same magic and, if not, when did its’ appeal begin to slip and how serious is the damage?
I think it is impossible to believe, or argue, that the FA Cup is as important or popular as it was.
Up and down the country tomorrow all manner of teams, not just the really big clubs, will be fielding under strength sides as they consider the more important, to them, league games coming up.
Up and down the country supporters who go to watch their teams’ league games every other week will be spending the afternoon otherwise occupied as their clubs set out on the road to Wembley.
Up and down the country clubs will be attempting to limit the damage at the turnstiles by offering cut price tickets to induce the fans to turn up.
These facts in themselves have to indicate that the FA Cup is no longer as important either to the clubs or the spectators as it once was. In years gone by it was the stated ambition of most footballers to play in an FA Cup final. Spectators thronged in their thousands to see the games and attendances generally dwarfed those of league games.
Why is this no longer the case? You can hardly blame the fans for being apathetic when so many clubs put out weakened sides. If the club is not taking the competition seriously then why should the supporters?
Money, as always, is the dominant factor.
Premier League clubs are more concerned about either making sure of their Champions League or UEFA Cup spot or simply staying in the division because of the massive financial implications that go with a failure to do so.
Clubs going for promotion from the Championship are often similarly minded.
Of course winning, or even getting to the final of, the FA Cup brings huge amounts of money and European qualification so why aren’t teams busting a gut to get to Wembley?
The answer to this question, an obvious one, provides the real answer as to why the FA Cup is losing its’ appeal.
Most teams pay less attention to the FA Cup because they know very well that they have no chance of winning it.
Once again money is the cause. Before Sky began putting their millions into English football and the richest of the rich began getting obscenely wealthy every club in the top flight and many of those in the second were entitled to believe they could make it to the FA Cup final and, as we all knew then, anything could then happen.
Now it will be considered a shock if the competition is not won by either Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool or Manchester United.
Let me tell you, this is not the type of “shock” on which the FA Cup’s reputation was founded.
Look at the facts; in the 1950’s there were eight different winners of the FA Cup, in the 60’s there were eight again. In the 1970’s, perhaps the most magical of all FA Cup decades, there were nine different winners including two from the second division.
It should also be remembered that the eight winners of the competition in the 1950’s did not include the two most powerful teams of the decade. Wolverhampton Wanderers never so much as made it to a final in those ten years and Manchester United failed on the two occasions they did make it to Wembley, although it did take a couple of madmen centre forwards and a tragic plane crash to stop them.
The rot began somewhat in the 1980’s when there were only seven different winners, although one of those was a second division side and there was also the unlikely double of Coventry City and Wimbledon winning the competition back to back.
The 1990’s saw only six different winners and so far this decade there have been just the four usual suspects.
In fact since Wimbledon famously lifted the trophy in 1988 there have only been six different winners of the FA Cup and, of those, Spurs and Everton have lifted the cup only once each leaving United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea to greedily devour the rest themselves.
That’s not magic is it?
Genuine giant killings seem to be a thing of the past as well. In the 50’s Port Vale put out the cup holders Blackpool on their way to the semi finals where they lost to a disputed penalty while Bournemouth won at Wolves and beat Tottenham before losing narrowly to the Busby Babes in 1957.
In 1959 Norwich City, another third division club, made it to the semi finals, beating Manchester United and Spurs along the way, before losing by the only goal in a replay. This was also the year that Worcester City beat Liverpool, but Bill Shankly’s team were only in the second division themselves then so it hardly counts.
In the 1960’s Crewe Alexandra won at Chelsea, having lost at Tottenham 13-2 the previous year, but again it was the 1970’s that proved a real vintage era for the competition.
We had Colchester United dumping out Don Revie’s great Leeds side as well as Ronnie Radford’s Hereford United taking out Newcastle.
We had two second division winners in Sunderland and Southampton who embarrassed the red hot favourites Leeds and Man U. respectively.
Another second division club, Fulham, made the final in 1975 and a year later Crystal Palace, from the third division, made it to the semis.
On top of all that we had Wimbledon, a non league club, winning away at first division Burnley before taking Leeds to a replay and only going down by a single, cruelly deflected, goal as well as Wrexham and Blyth Spartans in 1978 who ended up playing each other in the 5th round and providing one of the most dramatic ties imaginable.
The 1980’s continued to provide us with upsets, not that any of us were unduly upset. Bournemouth dumped out Manchester United, the holders, in 1984 while Sutton United toppled Coventry City in 1989.
The 1990’s threw up the glory that was Wrexham beating Arsenal with a splendid Mickey Thomas free kick but since then real shocks have been hard to come by.
In all fairness I must point out that money isn’t the only thing spoiling the romance of the cup. Probably all of the upsets mentioned above would have taken place on mudheaps akin to quicksand with defenders kicking lumps out of their supposed betters with virtual immunity.
The cup used to be the great leveller. Now it’s just another glaring demonstration of the haves and have nots.
Not so much the ultimate sporting democracy as another sporting autocracy.
And just as in any other walk of life nobody really enjoys seeing those with everything lording it over those who have nothing, except the privileged few themselves.