CUP IS NEW SYMBOL OF NORMALITY

THE annals of FA Cup history will not carry an asterisk next to the name of the 2020/21 winners.

There will be no official nod to the health crisis playing havoc with football and one of its most iconic competitions.

What if the worst came to the worst and ties in rounds leading up to the final had to be forfeited?

The name on the trophy would still be engraved as deeply as any other.

Chelsea won the FA Cup in 2000 and that triumph is no different from any of their seven other successes.

Despite the furore at the time, few remember that holders Manchester United did not take part in that season’s competition. So no one will dwell on the fact some teams had to play the kids in some games in the 2020/21 edition.

After all, since when, scandalously, usly, have most Premier League and Championship sides gone fullstrength in the early stages of their Cup campaigns?

Covid means Derby County have ve to send a young second string to

Chorley today but Wayne Rooney y was probably never going to field a firstchoice 11 anyhow.

Things are not ideal, to state the blindingly obvious. Drawing the fixtures for the fourth round and the fifth round at the same time is hardly in keeping with FA Cup tradition. But FA Cup tradition has been an evolving quality for a long time now. For a while we’ve had draws made when the previous round has not yet been completed.

As the grim Covid statistics roll in day after day, there is no telling how this football season will pan out.

It goes without saying public health relegates a sport to an incidental. But the Premier League ploughs on as it falls into the category of an elite competition.

Well, there is no more elite competition than the grand, old FA Cup.

In these dark times, we cling to small symbols of reassuring normality.

And there is nothing more thrillingly normal than a mighty, rich club such as Spurs scrapping with part-timers on a brute of a pitch on a filthy January day.

Nothing more thrillingly normal than the FA Cup being raised towards a Wembley sky in May.

That is why, in whatever form, the show is going on.