It’s that time of year
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What a day
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The decline of the FA Cup, like fascism, came about as traditional norms were chipped away at bit by bit.
The high point of the FA Cup’s history was pre-1991, and particularly the 1986-1990 period, when it probably never mattered more than at any stage in its history, given that English teams were banned from Europe.
The 1990 semi-final day when both ties were televised live was arguably the highest single point in the competition’s history.
It mattered for most of the rest of the 1990s, but there are several key points during thaat decade which all damaged its credibility and ultimately destroyed the competition as we knew it.
They are as follows:
i) The advent of a penalty competition for the 1990 fiinal replay. It didn’t need to be used, but that night, the competition took its first step on an inexorable slippery slope.
ii) The re-introduction of English teams into Europe in 1990. There was nothing inherently obvious as to why this should prove to be a factor in the FA Cup’s demise given that English teams had played in Europe for nearly 30 years pre-1985, but the re-introduction of English teams was the first step towards the Champions League era of European competitions.
iii) The first Wembley semi-final in 1991, which destroyed the sanctity of the venue for finals.
iv) The advent of penalty competitions for the 1992 competition. Gone was the possibility of the sometimes interminable yet frequently brilliant sagas like Arsenal v Leeds, Nottingham Forest v Crystal Palace and Liverpool v Everton which had graced the 1991 competition.
v) The formation of the FA Premier League in 1992.
vi) Wembley becoming a regular semi-final venue from 1993. Proper neutral venues like Elland Road and Villa Park were reinstated for 1995, but a line had been crossed and could not be uncrossed.
vii) The introduction of the second placed team in the league being admitted to the Champions League for the 1996/97 league season.
viii) BBC losing the rights to ITV for the 1998 competition.
ix) The abolition of the European Cup Winners Cup in 1999.
x) The admission of the third placed team in the league into the Champions League in 1999.
xi) The abolition of semi-final and final replays post-1999.
xii) The Manchester United debacle for the 1999/2000 competition.
xiii) In the same season, the Third Round was played before Christmas, which was an equally big factor in the downgrading of the competition.
xiv) The demolition of Wenbley and the move to Cardiff.
xv) The admission of the fourth placed team in the league into the Champions League in the 2001/02 season.
The last FA Cup game which genuinely felt like it mattered was the 1999 semi-final replay.
Since that, it has never felt like it really mattered and there has been an increasingly desperate air of fakery about the media attempts to tell the public that the competition matters.
If there’s one thing that irks me, it’s people trying to claim, against all evidence, that a sporting competition which really did matter in the late 80s and early 90s has lost none of its importance and charm, and that it still taken every bit as seriously now as it was then.
The “magic of the Cup” schtick is the sporting equivalent of crackpot Brexiteers retreating to a make believe fantasy world of an old Britain that no longer exists.
It’s just sad, pathetic trolling.
Thankfully we have great, venerable British sporting competitions which continue to endure in all their glory and finery in a way the FA Cup has not.
Wimbledon. The Grand National. The World Snooker Championship at The Crucible Theatre. Badminton Horse Trials. And of course, the World Professional Darts Championship at the Home of Darts, Lakeside.
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None of those competitions are domestic competitions so aren’t comparable.
I think the allure of the cup is still there.
Non league Newport beating recent Premier League champions Leicester at a packed Rodney Parade and the field in shit.
It’s also a significant source of income for lower league teams who can get to rounds 3/4/5 and draw a big away.
I’ve knocked good enjoyment out of round 3 anyway
Newport County are not a non league club.
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Aren’t they?
Just checked, league 2, my bad
Still, it was thrilling viewing
The FA Cup Third Round results mean that Liverpool’s FA Premier League games v Fulham (A) and Cardiff (A) will go ahead as scheduled on the weekends of March 16th and April 6th respectively.
The last thing we needed was a fixture pile up caused by a tournament that now has a similar significance to that of the Guinness Soccer Sixes of the late 1980s.
There was a time when a good FA cup run was very important for a clubs bottom line. Now it’s pretty much irrrelavant and getting top four or avoiding relegation is the be all and end all for clubs. Cups are just a distraction. There are too many champions league games now as well so top clubs have less time to rest players so FA cup weekend is like a recovery weekend.
Players run around a hell of a lot more now than they did in the 1980s. Liverpool’s squad is not as big as that of Manchester City or even Tottenham. In a similar way to how Leicester going out of the FA Cup in the third round in 2016 was a boost to their title prospects, it should help Liverpool get some much needed rest and recovery.
Presuming Manchester City stay in the League Cup and FA Cup, they are likely to have away games at Everton and Manchester United pushed into midweek dates late in the season, which could rightly mess them up.
There was something tremendously noble about teams’ willingness to potentially destroy themselves chasing early round FA Cup ties which went to multiple replays.
In 1991, for instance, Arsenal were in the middle of a title race with Liverpool, but it didn’t persuade them that their Round 4 tie against Leeds was worth giving up, and they ended up having to play four (four) furiously fought matches, including two periods of extra-time, to eventually get through it.
They received some karma from that when Liverpool were dragged into their own epic saga against Everton, which would cost Liverpool the greatest manager then in English football, and which pretty much decided that title race in Arsenal’s favour.
1991 finalists Nottingham Forest eventually put out the previous years’ finalists Crystal Palace after a three match saga in Round 3, which I’m sure @mickee321 will remember from John Salako’s last second 45 yard lob equaliser at the end of extra-time.
A time of tremendous nobility and stoicism in English football, when Charge of the Light Brigade-style heroic failure was serious currency.
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There was the four match Woolwich v Liverpool FA Cup semi final in 1980 as well. There was a league meeting between them sandwiched in the middle of the four FA Cup meetings, possibly after the first replay. They played five times in something like 17-18 days from mid April to early May with the semi final saga concluding at the somewhat unusual choice of semi final venues, Highfield Road, Coventry.
1991 was unique @Sidney in that we saw Monday night games were introduced
that salako goal i remember and Lee chapman also vs arsenal
Yes. There were definitely Monday night games in the 1991 FA Cup. I think Norwich beating holders Manchester United in Round 5 may have been one - West Ham beating Everton in Round 6 definitely was.
But Sky Sports didn’t come into being until April 15th, 1991. I think BSB (British Satellite Broadcasting) must have had the rights to these games but BSB to the best of my knowledge ceased to exist when Sky Sports started, and was subsumed into it.
The 4-4 draw between Everton and Liverpool was apparently carried live on the Cablelink channel in Dublin. I only found this out when I went into school the next day and found out that everybody else had been watching it live, while I was standing around in the kitchen listening on grainy medium wave reception on BBC Radio 2.
I did see the third match, which Everton won 1-0, live on the Cablelink channel with commentary provided by Martin Tyler and Andy Gray.
The BSB arrangement was I imagine the reason why Martin Tyler always commentated on and narrated the Serie A highlights programme which RTE showed on Monday nights after Christmas from 1990 to 1992 inclusive. Sky Sports had Serie A rights for the 1991-92 season, including live games. They also showed live Bundesliga games on Friday nights during the 91/92 season, as well as Scottish football. This ceased for the 1992-93 season when Sky took over Premier League rights and ditched everything else. Channel 4 famously took over the Serie A rights at this stage.
Brighton are bogey teaming us again.
I’ve a bad feeling about this one.
Peno.
We’ll miss it though…
Yeeeeesssss. The jinx did the job.