The lost magic of the FA Cup

It should have been FA Cup Final weekend. The BBC Sport app decided to note this event with a piece about players from Northern Ireland who had played in the Final. In pre-lockdown days this article, even had it been written, would have been largely ignored. But now football hungry fans are likely to read almost anything that may not mention re-starting or Bayern Munich. So, sad to admit that I scanned this article this morning, and there was the most shocking piece of Fake News since Neville Chamberlain told us that Mr Hitler was really a nice chap. It referred to the 1980 FA Cup Final as one that "led to West Ham still to this day being the only team from outside of the the top flight to win the FA Cup". In fact it has been achieved eight times. Fans of Notts County, Wolves, Barnsley and West Brom may be excused seething duties as very few witnesses to those victories are likely to be around to give evidence, but those from Sunderland and us lot have every right to be gobsmacked.

It is not simply that a piece of our respective club's history has been air-brushed with sloppy journalism but it ignores something far more sinister. This is the creeping realisation that the great competition is now almost the exclusive preserve of the big boys with the likes of us tossed the crumb of comfort of European qualification while the victors had bigger fish to fry. The loss of even this crumb has been removed, probably to avoid oiks who had snuck into the final being rewarded for such caddish behaviour.

The fact that between 1970 and 1980 there were 10 different winners (Arsenal winning twice), for whom in five cases it represents their last win - and for two of those their only win - can be compared to 2009-2019 when the cup was won 4 times by Chelsea and 3 by Arsenal. Only Wigan upset the usual suspects.

The FA Cup used to be the great leveller in the eyes of fans, which was, of course, mythical. Had Saints not been party poopers in 1976, a very good Third Division team would have made the Final, but generally it was the preserve of the top clubs. The golden era of 1970's is an exception. Remember that not only did three winners come from Div 2, but also a runner-up in Fulham. Second division teams could realistically dream of getting to the Cup Final. This run followed two Third Division teams winning the League Cup in the late 1960's. So a question is why these 'freak' results happened. Not difficult. Money. These teams all had a star or stars who would never have been playing if the Premier League had been around.

So, we keep being told that the post-Covid world will be different. Well, yes it will. Will Division One and Two clubs survive, let alone National League? How much financial damage will have been done by the time we are once again allowed access to matches? Wouldn't it be wonderful if the FA went against type and looked at the future of football as a whole rather than being steered by the 'big clubs'? One of things I'd like would be the return of the FA Cup as it was - you know, played on Saturdays with replays (loads of them if needed!) but this can only occur if the teams in the top two leagues could all have a go at it without feeling they might miss out on the pot of gold which is the FA Premier League.

Time for a revolution!

 

West Ham were the last team to win the FA Cup from outside the top tier, rather than the only team. Still, the fact that was so long ago shows how much the game has changed, and not for the better imo.

No one really knows what professional football will look like a year from now. I think it’s fair to say most clubs will be facing a crisis of some sort or another; for the optimists there is an opportunity to change the future of the sport for the better, and if that’s going to happen in England the FA will have a huge role to play. Will they let us all down? Quite possibly, but they might surprise us.

The Premier League, we can be sure, will have no interest in anything but enriching the top clubs, by selling “the product” to tv companies around the world. The PL has been part of the problem all along, so it’s unlikely it can ever be part of the solution.

 

The Magic of the Cup still lives on in the early rounds. FA Cup Round One “Proper” is still one of my favourite days on the footballing calendar.

I have a book in the loft that details every game in the 1977 competition. “Road to Wembley”
I loved regularly leafing through the book to see what teams did what in the tournament, particularly the qualifying rounds.
There is still magic there. But it is not at the final stages.

 

Yeah, true. And reaching the third round proper is generally a financial lifeline for a non league club.

 

Yeah I love the first round too and still see some good upsets there. Blyth Spartans at Hartlepool recently comes to mind.

Did anyone watch the top ten FA Cup moments on BBC last night? Shocked that Roy Essandoh wasn't in there. Epic FA Cup moment that.

Sadly, and I said this at the time, I reckon that Spuds game is the last replay we'll ever play. Another nail in the coffin of football.


I'm a youngster who's only ever known the PL era but the demise of the cup still saddens me greatly.

 

Agree 100%. The FA Cup is the link between all the different layers of the English football pyramid. Most of the clubs in the National League or the Southern League or the Isthmian League don’t dream of promotion to the EFL, let alone the Premier League, but a run in the FA Cup can do absolute wonders for a club’s finances. My local “big” club, Paulton Rovers, who play in the Southern League Division One West, got to the First Round Proper in 2009 and were drawn, you may remember, at home against Norwich City, at the time in League One with us. The game was of course televised, and with the TV money and gate money from the 2,000 fans they managed to pack in to the temporary stands, the club made a fortune which mitigated the 7-0 thrashing they received from the likes of Chris Martin and Grant Holt. They’re still living off the proceeds from that one game.

 

One of my fondest playing memories is playing in the First and Second round proper for a non-league club against league opposition. The coverage and build up was fabulous.

Beat Exeter in the first round and lost to Cambridge United in the second round.

 

I'm sure this was an amazing experience, with which I can identify. I used to play club cricket and we once had a run in a national cup comeptition in which we defeated a minor county and ended up playing a first class county by whom we were given a first class thrashing! But for a day we shared a pitch, and later a bar, with some top players who were very generous to us. It is still a fond reminisce if I ever meet up with any of my old team mates.

However, this doesn't detract from my original point. The Cup competitions are no longer there as an opportunity for a smaller club to win, in general. Being allowed to play with the big boys is great, of course. When Saints played Man Utd in the 3rd round during the promotion season in Div 1 it was the perfect result. A packed St Mary's saw Saints succumb to a narrow defeat amid lots of praise for their football before getting on with the priority of keague football. But even in saying that, I'm highlighting the massive inequalities that now exist. We used to speak of the depth of the Football League. I recall Ken Wlstenholme making this very point when Third Division Cardiff City came within a whisker of getting to a European final. When I first moved to the North West and stagecoaches ran infrequently to Southampton, I began to support Wrexham. Another third division outfit who consistently humbled major opposition - embarassingly Saints being one victim.

I suppose I'm really saying that we could apply a Marxist analysis here. Football is a reflection of life. Since the 1970's inequality has grown. The proles are offered largely worthless educational opportunities to make it appear that things are levelling up. The FA Cup is the preserve of a handful of clubs today, with the odd exception - Wigan, Pompey - being the way that the FA can show that this is not the case.

 

I agree with these statements. It saddens me with how the FA Cup has declined. When I was a kid, there was a kind of fear associated with the competition insofar that no one wanted to go out to lower league opposition. Back in the 70s and 80s, there seemed to be guaranteed shocks in each round, some of them truly embarrassing such as Coventry against Sutton Utd. I agree that the fact big teams dominating the competition has taken the edge off things but for the romance to work, there needs to be the big teams in the mix for the minnows to beat. The demolition of Watford by Man City summed things up for me, although I did not watch the second half as the match was played at tea time after which I had to go out for a family celebration. Not having the final at 3pm is a real disaster, I think.

FLT's comment about the non-league element of the game is salient. The first preliminary matches take place in August and they are big money earners for non-league football. I believe that the prize money for the first qualifying round is something like £2000. The sum effectively doubles in each round. I believe that even getting through the qualification rounds is sufficient for many clubs to have their finances secured for the next season at least.

The FA Cup is the only competition in football and needs to be supported. I would like to see a system whereby the larger clubs maybe brought in to the competition earlier to attract fans to the smaller grounds but also to afford the better opportunity for them to be eliminated on the basis of probability.

 

I remember that game very well. A muddy quagmire of a pitch and Arfon Griffiths dragging Channon to the ground in a wrestlers neck hold in the centre circle and getting away with it.

 

Was Nigel Owens refereeing?