Was lucky enough to experience the tail end of when the FA Cup was a massive deal. The whole day was devoted to it. 9am onward, glued to the screen. Cup final songs from the participants, interviews at the hotel and later on the bus. The game stood out a mile in the calendar as so few games were shown...it’s saturation now, so it wouldn’t have the same novelty.
The first nail in the coffin of the FA Cup was the Champions League expanding to allow teams placed 3rd and 4th in the league in...meaning you had more than half a dozen of the best teams in the country focusing on qualifying for that while regarding the FA Cup as an afterthought (resting players etc.). It had lost much of its gravitas.
Second nail was bulldozing Wembley. To remove what was an iconic venue for the showpiece event of the competition has been catastrophic. You heard the likes of Bergkamp growing up as a kid talking about dreaming of playing the cup final at Wembley and mentioning being overawed at the overhead shots of the stadium (which we all would have seen in the mammoth 6 hour coverage in the build up to kickoff). Fans singing “We’re going to Wemberlee”...with genuine excitement. That’s gone. They sing it, but it’s humdrum. The current place ain’t Wembley, it’s a generic bowl located in the same area. If anything Cardiff was a better venue than the current stadium on the site.
It’s a great traditional competition, but, it’s now a distant third on the list of priorities for top sides, and top sides not taking it as seriously means “giant killing” for lower sides no longer mean what they once did. The RS youngsters beating Shrewsbury was probably an upset...so Shrewsbury winning that wouldn’t have meant much. It’s sad, but that’s the current state of things now. Can’t remember the exact game, but Martin O’Neill was a pundit on a cup tie on the BBC two or three years back, and when Lineker asked him about the team that was knocked out, he said, “they’ll be disappointed for about 15 minutes, then they’ll turn their attention to the league”. I remember it as you tell Lineker was not wanting that dismissive response for what is the BBC’s flagship event in the sport. Don’t know if MON has been asked back, he was right though.
Hopefully something can be done to bring back the glamour to the game.
