GIVE US OUR CUP BACK
JOHN WRAGG LAMENTS THE WAY THE FA CUP GETS TREATED BY MONEY-HUNGRY CLUBS…
Clubs need to show respect
WHO said this? “A good FA Cup run is great for the supporters, great for the club, great for the team, great for everybody. It is something we want to try and do.”
It was Graham Potter, manager of Swansea City, after his one-change team (and that enforced by injury) played six-changes Aston Villa off their own park in the third round.
How naive is that? It must be that Potter is new to management in English football. It can be his only excuse because what you do is scrap your first team and put the reserves in for a Cup tie. Everyone knows that. But Potter gets worse: “It’s the third round of the FA Cup, you could see our supporters there, it meant a lot to them.
“This was the team we had against Reading (won 4-1) apart from Oli (McBurnie, injured) in our previous Championship game so we thought we’d go with it again.
“We are in that second half of the season, we want to try and build a momentum, build a consistency, an improvement in the team.
“A Cup run can assist your league form. It’s an important part of the season. You have to approach every game as if you can win, don’t think you can select games that aren’t so important.
“Every game, you have to get to that mentality that each one is almost a final, a knockout game and you want to try and win it.”
It’s got to be his recent upbringing, hasn’t it?
Graham Potter is sounding more like Harry Potter, it would be magic if a good Cup run could run alongside good league form. We all know that’s not possible, don’t we?
Potter might have been born near Birmingham, but he’s been managing some team called Ostersund in Sweden for eight years, he’s forgotten how it works here. Here’s a reminder, Graham. If you are manager of Tottenham, you make eight team changes for the Cup (admittedly nearly one change a goal against Tranmere), Burnley eight, Manchester United nine, Southampton six, Cardiff seven, Arsenal six, Crystal Palace nine, Newcastle eight, Fulham six, Manchester City eight (again almost one per goal v Rotherham) and Leicester seven.
If you are Liverpool you could go the whole hog and get the FA Cup renamed the Checkatrade Trophy Mark II and play three teenagers.
Even in the Championship they were at it on Cup third round day. Sheffield United almost totally went for broke with ten changes, West Brom nine, Norwich eight, Aston Villa six.
Villa haven’t won the FA Cup since 1957. It got a friend of mine thinking.
Dennis Shaw, now retired, is a well regarded former sportswriter in the Midlands from the days when the Birmingham Evening Mail sold 400,000 copies a day.
“Third round FA Cup day,” says Den. “It was a Villa tie away at Luton Town. The pitch was a paddy field of thick, thick mud. Totally unplayable - but they played.
“Villa’s main goalscorer of the generation, Peter McParland, ploughed through the mud cloying around his ankles to score and Villa were through.
“That was the start of one of the most remarkable ever FA Cup runs as Villa went on to beat Manchester United’s Busby Babes at Wembley.
“One last thought... a chap with a vaguely familiar face, a Luton Town director, served me a glass of beer. It was Eric Morecambe.”
Wonder what Eric would have thought about today’s diminished, shambles of an FA Cup competition?
Rubbish.
With every wrong decision the FA make, they chip another bit of silver off the grand old Cup.
Football is so full of stats these days - not to mention runaway hype - the number of changes made by each team for each Cup tie should be up there with the goalscorers, attendance, possession and all the rest of it.
It would give us some idea of what kind of team is playing in camouflage for Liverpool, Man U, City, Spurs and all the other grandees of the modern game.
The argument is that there are too many games. Too many demands. Players can’t cope. They must get a rest.
There is some worth in that because the Christmas-New Year period is hectic leading into the third round of the Cup in the first week of January.
But why take it out on the Cup? Rest a few, if you have to, for one of the league games. No? Why not? Oh, I see. You get millions from the Premier League.
Champions Manchester City banked £156m last season from their cut of the basic TV income, merit money and TV appearances.
United did better with £159m, Liverpool £149m, Tottenham £147m, Chelsea £148m, Arsenal £146m.
Outside the top six, even bottom club West Brom, who no-one wanted to watch on telly outside of Smethwick, earned £99m. So there’s a powerful accountancy case for binning the Cup for the PL.
The Premier League then stick the boot in, of course, by playing one of the games of their season, Manchester City v Liverpool, the night before the FA Cup’s new four-day extravaganza kicked off.
The FA have stretched the Cup to its breaking point – ie: more televised games when TV wants them - to top up their prize money.
If you lost in the extra preliminary round back in early sunny August you got £750. Enough to give the dressing rooms a lick of paint and a revamp.
Third qualifying round £15,000. Third round proper £135,000. Fourth round £180,000 and on to £3.6m for winning the Cup.
Money for live TV is added on to these amounts but when you think the money to be won across the Champions League, Europa League and Super Cup is £2.84 billion this season you can see why the bank account rules.
But has it got to the point where it’s all about the money? Is there no romance?
Remember the days when you bought a programme with the two teams all printed out in formation - probably right back in those days when the Cup was king?
Well, you’d have spent all game crossing out and writing in again for the West Brom v Wigan tie.
Nine changes by West Brom. Six changes by Wigan. It is utter nonsense. There is still a love for the Cup in the lower leagues and Non-League.
It still hurts the tepid way my team Tamworth went out of the Cup in the first qualifying round on a rainy Saturday at Hednesford (won £6,000 prize money).
Do the reasons why the big clubs are wrecking the Cup stack up?
Teams used to play back-to-back games over Christmas and Boxing Day so not a lot of change there.
Pitches, as Dennis said, were awful. Today they are crown green quality.
The Premier League plays 38 games a season. Back in 1957, when Den was watching Villa start their run, they played 42.
There were FA Cup replays infinitum. Now they are chopped at the fifth round. There were League Cup replays as well.
Players, we are told, are better and fitter now. Certainly there are better medical facilities and knowledge. So why do they have to be rested so often?
What’s the problem? Get on with it. Give us our Cup back.