Nostalgic Pushead

There's an article in The Daily Mail today in which a bunch of older people bemoan the fact that our game, where we might clinch the title, is on the same day as the FA Cup Final, and the timing that our celebrations could overlap and consequently overshadow it - the world's media at Ewood Park rather than Wembley.

Of course it's all our fault -

It is yet another kick in the guts for the FA Cup, a competition which has suffered a series of blows this century since United were encouraged to withdraw in order to take part in FIFA's World Club Championship in Brazil in 2000.

A blow which was self-inflicted by the FA it should be noted - as was the decision to award the TV rights to ITV/Setanta when the BBC had worked a miracle in resuscitating the competition.

I've often defended the Cup from the constant criticism it receives in the media.  It's an alright competition.  Self-evidently it's not as important as it used to be, and no amount of rose-tinted reminiscences about how brilliant cup-final day used to be etc. is going to change that. It's a good competition, but it's no longer the premier competition or attraction.

Tony Pulis unwittingly explains that the reason was not so much about the greatness of the competition but more about availability:

The live games then were few and far between and the FA Cup was such a special day in the English football calendar

The use of the word 'and' as 'so' Not many live games on the TV meant any one live game on the TV was a lot more special than it is now.  Would we really want to return to such a world just to big up the FA Cup?

This old, nostalgic attitude is taken to even greater extremes by Jim Montgomery:

Sunderland's goalkeeping hero of the 1973 final victory over Leeds, [who] said: 'I find it scandalous the final isn't going to have the stage to itself. The whole nation should be tuning in at 10am, savouring the build-up and watching Wembley Way getting busier by the minute.'

The whole nation should be strapped to their chairs and forced to watch it - from 10 o'clock! Let's return to a world where there was only 2 channels and that was all there was to watch.  How many distractions we have now, 100s of TV channels, Twitter, Facebook, all vying for attention, and on a normal FA Cup Final day all these things could be utilised to make the experience of the day better, more interactive, more entertaining more special.  Rather than bemoaning that the present isn't the past, the people moaning might like to look at ways to use the advances of technology to enhance their event, make it relevant again, make it unmissable.

Of course, the reason the Final clashes with the league programme is the Champions League Final being played at Wembley.  This is somehow apt, that this is the new Final of Finals.  This is the one everyone wants to win.  Everyone wants to watch.  And it's now physically pushing the FA Cup off its special day, just one among a number of competitions.  It's also fitting that the contrast -Man Utd vs Barcelona or Man City vs Stoke - also exemplifies the lesser status of the FA Cup.

No amount of hand-wringing or nostalgia is going to change the facts.  You can't force people to watch the FA Cup Final, you can't force the world backward.  The fact that people are saying the FA Cup needs protecting demonstrate that it is probably already too late.  In the 1990s the League Cup managed to reinvent itself as "the other cup" competition, The FA Cup needs to embrace the change in its position.  It still has a lot going for it:  It's history, it's tradition, but it must also embrace the future, and in that future, for better or worse, it's no longer top-dog, but it could still be special.