Remember the FA Cup final, the pre match build up, leaving the hotel, the journey via the coach, all the hocus pocus of the morning, everything stopped in the afternoon for David Coleman or Brian Moore, 10 to 3 abide with me, 3.00 o'clock and off, now..... Nothing, not a mention, no build up, no anticipation, no picking of a team to support for a day, denial, zilch, complete ignorance of what was once the most important game of the season. Well here it is, tucked away on Saturday Night..Sat 17 May 2014 - FA Cup - Arsenal v Hull - 17:00 K/O. please log in to view this image
believe all that tradition went out the window, when the fa said bloody utd could go off on a jolly to the middle east rather than participate, and at the same time sold the tv rights to Murdoch and co.
Sadly, the importance of the Cup Final has been allowed to fade over the past 20 years or so, mostly because of the focus on the end of the Premier League season. The season or two where the Cup Final was scheduled for the week before the final Saturday of the PL season was the nadir of the contempt the PL holds for the competition. To a degree, it also didn't help over the life of the PL where it was pretty much pick at least 1 from the same 4 (Man U, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal) - 20 of the 23 finals since 91/92 included one of those, with 7 between 2 of those 4). Yep, the coverage in the "old days" could be a bit cheesy - Cup Final "Its a Knockout" etc - but you used to pretty much block out your Saturday from mid-morning to about 6pm, and you'd feel like it was one of the biggest events of the year. And the build up in the papers would last all week. How sad that there's almost no build up or anticipation any more. BTW, thanks for the heads-up Wizered that kick off this Saturday is 5pm BST, and not 3pm. Why the late kick off, what is the potential clash? Not the ridiculous rugby league mega-weekend, surely?
The FA cup back in the 70's and early 80's was special because it was a live game - back then there were only 2 or 3 live gams all season Breakfast with the teams - it's a knockout etc etc
Used to love all that build up when I was young- But you're right about it being a live game. Even match of the day could be a 0-0 bore. Worse still when it was in black and white. A red shirt and a blue shirt were the same colour. Unless one was in stripes, it was often difficult to tell who was who. Best feature for me was when they showed you the action from each round that the final teams had been involved in. The ..how they got there bit... First final I saw was Man City beating Leicester 1-0. Shortly after was the classic leeds v Chelsea that needed a replay. Both great games.
