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Graham Kelly: Wembley way to mortgage the magic of the Cup

Monday 06 January 2003 01:00 GMT
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As long as Shrewsbury's Gay Meadow survives to torment Premier League managers there will always be the possibility of upsets, but there was a conspicuous lessening of anticipation in the build-up to the third round of the FA Cup this season.

I guess in former years it was overkill, with all the coverage of the bakers and postmen who were rising at 4am for their shift before their trip to Old Trafford or wherever.

But virtually all the media this season, with the exception of those showing cheesy trailers for live matches, have been preoccupied with the usual Premiership personalities and the opening of the transfer windows.

In one of the earliest histories of the game, Association Football and The Men Who Made It (1906), Alfred Gibson and William Pickford wrote: "The Cup ties stir the blood of the footballer as no other competition does. When the first half of the season has come and gone and dark December drags its weary way, there is a beacon light ahead that fills the enthusiast with hope and joy. That light is the Cup. The winter of our discontent is made glorious summer by the dawning of the Cup ties. It is safe to say that no single event in history causes more popular enthusiasm than the simple struggle for the Blue Ribbon of the football world."

It is safe to assume, in fact, that, coming fast on the heels of a busy holiday programme, the third round of the Cup stirred the blood of far fewer players this season.

At the highest level, sadly, it seems more and more as if all that matters is the Premiership and the Champions' League, with everything else, including the FA Cup, consigned to selling-plate status. As we saw with the recent resignation of the Football Association's chief executive Adam Crozier, even the England team became a pawn in the power struggle at the head of the game.

There was a danger that the Cup would become a casualty in that dispute. Plans were even mooted for a Premier League Cup competition and wild threats were made by some of the more bullish figures in the row. Whether the idea had ever been properly thought through never became apparent. I doubt it. Nevertheless, the more conciliatory personalities did little to sustain the FA Cup by their silence then.

When the struggle showed signs of abating, there were some reassuring noises about "enhancing the status of the Cup", which probably owed more to worries about the size of the prize fund for the later rounds.

Another idea suggested at that time by one of the usual rebels is sure to come up again and is one which would be detrimental to the Cup. This is the concept of nursery clubs, whereby, as a last resort in order to prevent a smaller club going out of business, it becomes linked closely to, say, a Premier League club. The implications, both for the integrity of the game generally and for cup competitions specifically, would be enormous and have long worried genuine supporters.

The FA has taken the opportunity afforded by being without a main title sponsor of moving the fourth-round draw back to the traditional Monday lunchtime radio slot. Despite people's professed longing for a return to the good old radio days, I believe this move has come too late, as the draw is now keenly awaited by a bigger audience much sooner.

Football's precarious and complex finances have been much under the spotlight of late and there is no doubt the FA Cup has latterly done more than most, with its increased prize-money, to equalise the ever-growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots.

Clubs such as the two Harrogate teams and Guiseley have earned much-needed prize cash by their progress through the early rounds this season. Certainly, the officials of Third Division Rochdale were all smiles after player-manager Paul Simpson's winning strike earned the club £50,000 at Deepdale on Saturday.

I realised late last week that what had been lacking in the build-up was the Cup's spiritual home, Wembley Stadium, currently lying half-demolished. What I had not anticipated was that the FA would decide to take the semi-finals there permanently from 2006 in order to help meet the massive £757m refurbishment costs. By this one act the FA has demonstrated that the Cup is no longer a vehicle for supporters' dreams, but rather simply another cup competition, any competition, just another factor in football's increasingly desperate commercial equation.

Not only is it a kick in the teeth for the fans, it will dent their faith in the Cup, and also their willingness to support the new Wembley. The bankers won't like it. You cannot bottle magic.

grahamkelly@btinternet.com

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