It's not what it was. The FA have gradually killed it as they prioritised money/TV companies over prestige of their oldest cup competition. Sky largely to blame but the FA helped. The FA allowing Man U to pull out in 2000 was the first nail, the 2nd was failure to sanction teams that deployed weakened squads (a rule I disagree with but they were happy to enforce it on Wolves and Blackpool in the PL) and the final nail was in 2011 when they allowed the Final to be played on the same day as PL fixtures just to accommodate the Champions League Final. When I was growing up FA Cup final day was like an event, it was easily the biggest day of the football calendar and even though your own team weren't involved there was a great deal of excitement and anticipation. You just didn't leave your house, it was almost like an England game. Sadly though our FA, like most, are motivated primarily by money and commercially the Champions League and Premier League are far bigger competitions which has led to the detriment of the FA Cup. There was a time where attendances across the board went up on FA Cup weekend not down.
The only reason why Bradford got so far is the PL side put out their reserves. The PL teams might as well withdraw from both cup. In fact Id do that in the LC as we lose money before we get knocked out anyway.
On the other hand, prior to this year we had 2 broken legs in 2 FA cup games. Im done with cup games, I used to be excited by the winner takes all nature of it but Im not paying 15-30 to watch our reserves get knocked out by a L1 or L2 side.
I saw Taarabt walking in before the game and he looked fine and was happy, smiling and talking to fans. We are nothing without him, he is the only guy who can open up a team.
Thats a write off for me, 3 points on Saturday is what counts or I will fear for our board when RangerCol gets back home!
So cols original post was correct then.. . . Let's just write off the Cup game. . . Forget the fact that it cost me about £80 plus three hours travel time, the anguish of sitting through 96 odd minutes of anguish watching those over paid ****s not perform. A whole day which would of been better spent with my family just for Harry to take the piss and field these twats against a **** team. As col said... What's the point?
I agree, Ill only consider a game if we are drawn away within a few minutes of me, Im not going to travel hours to watch that ****e. Im sure the locals will go but like you, its a lot harder to handle when every "home" game is an away game for you.
I don't live that far Flyer. About fifteen miles from HQ. It can take 45 minutes at best, 2 hours at worst. Southampton away and Brighton away ( next season ) will be a more pleasent drive.
or walk but I have a funny feeling Saints will stay up. Looking like us Villa and Reading. The thing is a lot of people who live close by are totally wasted and you feel the game interrupts their drinking. Its easier to forget when youre wasted rather than having a long drive home, especially when an arsehole bus driver cut us off and wouldnt let us take the right turning and we had to go home via Reading!
you should of gone to Reading in the first place and watched the Rangers rejects, sounds like they played well
Ive only ever gone there twice but would never go there knowingly unless it was exceptional circumstances or we were playing. On the positive side, at least the Flyers are winning 7-1 away from home tonight, the other team arent even bothering to fight.
Cheers Andy. I shall be polite but it is really hard to. I don't even think what the average Ranger paid today ( Yesterday, what evs... Cup game. ) will even scratch the surface of the collective pay packet of any Rangers player today. I'm sure that someone on here will be able to equate it mathematically. What I saw at LR today was perhaps the worse ever performance I have ever seen. No exaggeration. I'm pretty damn sure that we could of picked an eleven out of the home crowd that would of fared no worse and done the job for free. A quick assumption of ability and banter would of had us organised in minutes. These premiership players that we follow.... why do they all of a sudden after years and years of training and practice fail to do the basics? What Ferdinand did for their second goal would of earned a scolding at Junior schoolboy level. In fact every player that pulled on a hooped shirt today was a complete and utter ****ing joke. Welcome to QPR, the joke of a team that keeps on giving. This result, pound for pound was far worse than Vauxhall motors.
