FA Cup has lost some magic... but it was the making of my dreams
DO YOU know why after every final I ever won, I was pictured wearing a stupid hat? Because of the FA Cup.
God, I loved it when I was a kid. Used to get up on Cup Final day and watch it from early in the morning right through until the game itself, in the days when the coverage on the telly seemed to start at dawn.
I’d eat my Frosties, watching breakfast with the players, lapped up the interviews in the hotel, laughed at the comedians who entertained the teams, revelled in Cup Final It’s a Knockout, picked out landmarks on the bus ride to the stadium.
I used to dream of being inside that changing room and walking up the tunnel to take in the atmosphere on the pitch – and dreamed even more of walking up those steps and saying something cheeky to the Queen.
Most of all, though, I wanted – so desperately wanted – to celebrate on the pitch at the end with the trophy, draped in the scarves and hats that the jubilant fans threw at me... after I’d scored a hat-trick in the final. Obviously. Hence the dodgy headwear.
It was almost as big as Christmas Day, and I’d be reliving the events afterwards down the all-weather pitch at the bottom of our road with my mates.
Hell, I even made up my own game where I was the FA, with 64 names in a hat for the draw, then deciding each round with a dice before the next round’s draw... which kept me occupied through some of the weirder moments of coverage.
I can honestly say it’s the trophy I most wanted to win when I used to daydream about one day emulating those gods on TV.
I watched Kevin Ratcliffe lift the trophy in 1984 when Everton beat Watford after my hero Graeme Sharp had scored – and I knew I had to try and do the same.
That’s why I’m the FA Cup’s biggest advocate and why I’m getting that familiar feeling during the third round this weekend.
Cup Final day was the ultimate because, when I was small, it was the only live game I HAVE many of my own special FA Cup memories, including a final with Cardiff. Unfortunately, I was not fit enough to be selected for the squad, but I think my greatest memories are of on TV and you got to gorge on the coverage that had been so stingy all year. But third round day was the real day, because the big teams came in and got bludgeoned by the minnows ( I can still talk the language even now!). It’s a shame the cup has lost some of that magic we experienced. Because I think about how much it turned me on to football and even drove my ambition to get to the top, in some ways. I’d clap my heroes, as they went by on open-top buses, so keen to get up off the pavement and become one. There are a lot of factors, not least because the Premier League is where the money is, and because the overseas stars that money buys don’t get the cup like those brought up on it. And, of course, there are about a thousand live games on TV now. Yet, third-round day still makes you smile. There were so many shocks when I was other heroes. The first was Everton in ’84 – and the Blues giving Watford a lesson.
I was a huge fan of Graeme Sharp, so to sit there wide-eyed and watch him score at Wembley was a defining moment.
Perhaps an even greater one was in ’87 when Keith Houchen a kid, like Bournemouth beating United, or York beating Arsenal. And, of course, Sutton beating Coventry. So long as it wasn’t Everton – or Liverpool when I started playing for them! - I was always on the side of the underdog. One of my first games at Goodison summed it up for me. I went in ’84 on two buses up to the stadium, saw tiny Gillingham get a 0-0 draw and almost sneak a win – and it was one of the scariest, tensest, most exciting days of my life to that point. I was nine and that memory has stuck with me for life. I hope this w e eken ekend d ’s footbal f ootballl has brought the same sort of feeling for kids of that age now.