The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

Navigation

You are here: Home / Forum / F.A. Cup Final

F.A. Cup Final

by 143 Comments

… no, really, it does still exist.
I don’t think I’m on a willy-wind-up… I mean, it did happen, yeah?

Don’t tell me…
Team f***-face’ won…
“REALLY important trophy to win, history etc., must keep the blah, blah, alive – thing – stuff.”

Team traitors against the country lost… “Our ambition is 4th and, anyway, we’ve allowed Russian billionaires to destroy this country, haven’t we? ’bout time you gave us a break.”

What a load of shite – sums this country up in 2022.
Nil f***** nil —— again.

0

Comments

  3. Watched my first Cup Final live in around twenty years. There was a time I would have been bouncing up and down with excitement but all the noise, flares and, it must be said, the breathtaking technique couldn’t hide the fact this has become tawdry pageantry. It didn’t help I dislike Chelsea slightly less than I do Liverpool (even though annoyingly Klopp seems a top notch bloke – what a bastard) but I suspect even if Norwich got to Wembley (stop sniggering) I’d feel much the same.
    Football, my football – what have they done to you?

  5. Mighty Reds triumph again, as 0-0 draws go that was a very good one and I witnessed the pass of the season from Trent Alexander-Arnold, outside of his boot through a small gap into the path of (the excellent) Diaz, who missed the chance.

    I didn’t watch the shoot out, I find them bad for my BP, it’s 2/2 for me doing this. Not sure what to do if it happens in Champion’s League final as I may be watching in a pub

  6. The Germans have a phrase to sum up football, which takes into account all of the changes, corruption & skullduggery, beauty & garbage & nonsense the game generates.
    In English, it reads as ‘The ball is round’. It’s a statement of fact, & also sums up that it remains the one consistent thing at the core of the game. Everything else is open to alteration, rules can be twisted etc. but this remains immutable & constant.
    It’s a bit like Christmas – if it’s for you, the value remains unchanged & unchangeable, whatever else surrounds it.
    Some people will use it to hang their personal issues on & post stuff online after seemingly huffing on shoe scuff removal fluid – that’s their prerogative.
    Anybody who wasn’t absorbed by a gripping 0-0 draw that could have gone either way, should seek other forms of diversion.
    It was a superb game that unfortunately had to be settled on penalties, but there you go.

    • Completely agree with those last two paragraphs but don’t we all look back on the 3.00 kick off games from our childhood, with all the cup final Mastermind, camera on the coach, quirky story build up that there always used to be etc with the cosy glow of nostalgia?
      I went in 1980, West Ham v Arsenal, as a 12 yr old Hammers fan. A huge but friendly skinhead grabbed me at the end and offerred me my first lager, which I dubiously tasted and grimaced, and even my Dad laughed, such was the post win happiness and loss of reason. That’s what I associate with the FA Cup.

    • Not taking anything away from the skill and technique – I watched the Man C v Liverpool game a few weeks ago – astonishing, just astonishing. I remember when at Pittodrie if our left-back actually trapped a long ball first time, the whole ground cheered. These guys are from another planet, Planet Football.
      Still doesn’t take away the fact that the game, for me at least, has lost its soul. I will admit some of my bitterness (jealousy?) is as a result of Norwich’s desperate season. If a well-run, financially-solvent, community-based club like Norwich is doomed to bounce up and down from Championship to Premiership in perpetuity whilst teams with loads of dosh and no moral scruples battle it out for the Top 5 places season after season after season then most of the time count me out.

        • The left-back of which I speak, Ally Shewan, had strong moral scruples. The First Law was “Man before ball.” In the opening minutes the ball would find its way out to the opposition wee winger (he was always wee) who jinked his way past two men. Time for Ally to step in. The wee winger found himself lying over the boundary wall whilst old men in tartan bonnets looked down at him hurling encouragement with words like “Yee we fairy” or “No so smart now, eh?” The ref would walk over to Ally “Nae mair o’ that, right?”. Ally would nod and three minutes later the wee winger was once again airborne. “Last chance, Ally.” It didn’t matter, the wee winger stopped shouting for the ball and hung out by the touchline for the next 85 minutes. Meanwhile, Ally tried perfecting his long pass upfield. There was one time, just the once, he actually found our centre-forward. The stadium erupted. Ally took his bow.
          Trent Alexander, Andy Robertson, pah

  7. I was at the theatre – Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem with the astonishing Mark Rylance, since you ask – and the penalties were still going on when the curtain rose. For the first 30 seconds, in which you’re supposed to be listening in awed reverence to a fairy singing the titular hymn, the room was alive with the hiss of women whispering TURN THAT BLOODY PHONE OFF RIGHT NOW! to their husbands.

      • I’m not a football fan but I was surprised to turn the tv on to see a live footy match pop up, and on checking the tv schedule see that it was the FA Cup Final. Was there any ballyhoo around this I missed?

        As Nick L says above, when I was a kid and was interested, Cup Final Saturday was a huge thing. The arrival of the teams and all ‘the road to Wembley’ analysis. Listening to the gathering buzz of the fans. It dominated the days news cycle. It was The Only Thing.

        Having long since ceased to be a fan and with all those antennae switched off now I haven’t been aware of any sense of occasion around the big day for years. That seems a shame. Oddly.

  9. A civilian asks: didn’t there used to be cup final replays? When did the penalty shootouts take over?

    A few years ago, when Offspring The Younger played for his local team, I tried to show interest in ProSoccerBall and sat down with him to watch a cup final. It was dull, even by my standards. At half-time I went to the kitchen to make a cuppa, when I returned he’d gone to his bedroom to play Fifa.

  10. The FA Cup Final rarely throws up a great game. Coventry Spurs 1987, and Man City pulling Watford apart a couple of years ago are exceptions.
    1979 Final often lauded as the greatest Final, but it was quite pedestrian for 85 minutes

  11. Cup Final day used to be one of my favourite days of the year, when I was younger and football and music were the two most important things in my life by far. As others have said, Cup Final It’s a Knockout, Saint and Greavsie with celebrity fans, Cup Final wrestling, etc. it used to be an occasion, because everybody wanted to get to the final, so it was difficult and teams really appreciated it when they got there. For example, despite Liverpool’s dominance of the League during the late 70s and 80s, they only won the Cup once between 74 and 89. Since the Premier League money started getting chucked at the big teams it’s the same old teams that win it, almost every year. I haven’t watched a final for years, but me and the boy watched the penalties on my phone last night, whilst the adverts were on before watching You Only Live Twice at the cinema (they are showing all the Bond films in order, every Saturday night – one of our favourites next week, can’t wait!), desperately hoping for someone to win before the film started, which they did, with seconds to spare.

    During the 80s it seemed that Barnsley’s biggest home attendance every season was a Cup game. One year it was a Cup replay against Aldershot, despite all the local derbies and big name teams we were playing in Division Two. The Cup was far more important than the league. I wanted Barnsley to get to the Cup Final more than I wanted us to get to the top flight. I went to the Cup Final in 89 and had seen several semi finals at Hillsborough, where I volunteered with St John Ambulance. The Leeds v Coventry semi in 87 was amazing. I was covering the corner with Coventry fans at either side of me and the scenes at the end were fab. I so wanted that to be us.

    Twice I thought it was going to be us. In 98 after beating Spurs and Man United, but Shearer cunningly getting Adie Moses sent off in the quarter final put paid to that (Ginola did the same to Adie Moses in the following year’s quarter final, before scoring a celebrated goal that he possibly wouldn’t have, had his man marker still been on the pitch). But most of all I thought we were going to do it in 2008.

    The excitement of celebrating the last minute winner at Anfield, followed by playing Chelsea off the park and then we lost 1-0 to Cardiff in the semi, with Portsmouth waiting in the final (winning the Cup with a team they couldn’t afford, the cheats!). We’ll never get that close again or a better chance of actually winning it. I really thought that season was going to be the justification for all those relegation battles we routinely have to watch. Odejayi’s miss at Wembley was the stuff of nightmares. You should never lose a game like that by one goal, because the kitchen sink should be thrown at the opposition in the last five minutes, guaranteeing a goal at one end of the other, but that miss knocked the stuffing out of us.

    But now, year by year the Cup is devalued. When you get lower league clubs fielding weakened sides, because they have a big league game against Rochdale the following week that’s more important, you know that it’s finished as the competition it used to be. I still dream of us getting to the final though, even though getting past round 3 is an achievement these days! But we’re still the only team to win it in Yorkshire and always will be.

  12. Those wondering why it is not a big thing any more with hours of build up etc, it used to be the only game of the season shown live on TV, now there are hundreds. At least we now get full strength teams in the later stages and both teams desperately wanted to win yesterday

    • Indeed. The first live football match I ever watched was the 1974 FA Cup final. The second was the 1974 World Cup final. The third was the 1975 FA Cup final. Three live games is a typical Sunday now..

  13. Football has progressed massively in terms of professionalism, skill, pitches, rules. I can’t think of a way in which it is worse (maybe the cost of a ticket). The FA Cup is still a great competition but there are lots of other great competitions and leagues that are available to football fans.

    I’m in a few Facebook football groups and some people bang on about the good old days of muddy pitches, alcoholic players and playing the man not the ball. That’s like saying the 100 metres was better when people did it slower because they were also a postman. Daft.

      • I’m really not wishing to go back to the good old days of crap pitches and actual physical assault – today’s game is electrifying in its speed and skill.
        What I would like to go back to is when your club somehow found a Clough or a Ferguson (ah, Aberdeen) and had a reasonably rich local-lad-made-good as owner prepared to lash out a million or two on some promising youngster from Huddersfield. It was a reasonably level playing field back then so, who knows, that could be your team battling it out with Real Madrid. Today, all you can hope for is mid-table in the Premiership and maybe, just maybe a decent run in the cup. Football is made for Dreams but unless you are one of the super-rich elite, forget it

        • Klopp was a humble footballer, plying his trade with lowly Mainz 05. He became their manager and got them promoted. From there to Dortmund to Liverpool. Not that much different to Ferguson’s career arc.

          Tuchel almost followed in his footsteps. He had to retire from playing at the age of 25. He, too, managed Mainz then Dortmund before moving on to PSG then Chelsea.

          • Great managers from humble beginnings still around. Get success with a lowly club then off to Anfield or whenever. My point is however good the manager is without a billionaire on the board he’s never going to take his team to “success”. I rest my argument with the following – “Every single week of Abramovich’s ownership Chelsea lost £900,000”.

    • Ignoring modern football off the pitch, where there’s far more things worse with it than better, the thing that spoils it on the pitch is the cheating. It must be the only sport in the world where cheating is actively coached into players and the commentators make excuses for it, often blaming the innocent party for being “naive” rather than the player that cheated. The cheating, along with the way the game has been ruined by money, is why I don’t bother watching it any more.

      What makes it worse is that some of the most gifted players in the league are the biggest culprits. You used to have to wait until you were watching South American or Southern European teams in the World Cup to see such blatant diving and gamesmanship. Down in the Championship you can always tell the teams that have recently come down from the Premiership by the level of cheating, all the diving and surrounding the referee after every ‘foul’.

      But even apart from the diving and feigning injury, things like timewasting and all the other ‘old man’ tricks filter all the way down the leagues, like when a defender gets between the player and the ball, slows down and then goes over as soon as the player touches him. Linesmen fall for that every single time. Every game, if there’s only a goal in it, seems to finish with the leading team trying to keep the ball in the corner. Barnsley are awful for time wasting, but we don’t often have a lead to hang on to these days. It’s awful to watch

      • But watching the 1970 cup final (as an example), the amount of cheating is exceptional. It’s a different kind of cheating but it was there. And it was coached in and encouraged. The rules, refs and TV has meant that that kind of approach will not work now – so they cheat differently.

        • Very well said.

          The English have always been fond of pointing the finger at other nations for cheating, while being no strangers to the dark arts themselves.

          The only real difference is that certain cultures never considered diving “unmanly”. And once the English accepted diving as part of the game, they quickly became as good at it as anyone, which tells a story.

          It’s pure delusion that the English had to be taught to cheat.

        • You don’t have to go back as far as the 1970 final. Have another watch of the 1981 replay. The one with the fantastic goal, by Steve MacKenzie (far better than Ricky Villa’s!). The two teams kicked lumps out of each other, led by Man City’s Gerry Gow-Does-He-Get-Away-With-It.

          • They showed the 1970 replay (highlights) yesterday before the game. I reckon there would have been at least 6 red cards if played today (and not just Leeds were dirty)

            Btw the first 1970 game was the very first game I watched on TV, less than 2 years later at the age of 9 I went to see Cardiff v Leeds at Ninian Park, amazingly 50,000 were there including plenty of hooligans, couldn’t see much but it was a memorable day

      • Two thoughts about cheating:

        1. The stakes are higher, which probably means more cheating.

        2. Maybe there isn’t that much more and you just literally see it more – better lighting, cameras, action replays on big fuckoff tellies

        • Yes – my first proper 90 minute game was 40 years ago and the (much better) team we played were also fantastic at getting free kicks. I can still hear the “AAAH” as a player I did not touch tumbled over in front of me. He was a sort-of mate and I saw him in a new light after that. Not that I hold grudges.

        • There’s definitely a lot more, of all varieties, apart from the type that Leeds were good at in the 70s. I see it at every game I go to. More so when the team is from the Premiership or has recently been in the Premiership.

  14. I was there, it was brilliant, a good match, a great atmosphere. Not a fan of either team but if I grit my teeth I have to admit that this Liverpool team is very easy on the eye. The FA do seem to try to make the game a spectacle but the wildly off-key rendition of Abide With Me was hilarious. Walked back to the tube with mostly Chelsea fans who were hell-bent on ruining their reputation as humourless mindless thugs, some first rate banter and laughs, self-depreciation and acceptance of the result.

    • Thanks for bothering to mention that perfectly affable Chelsea supporters exist, Harry, it makes a pleasant change from the usual lazy narrative.
      Very glad you had a cracking afternoon!

  15. It’s now a modern event designed for the 21st century. Lots of young boys and girls would have watched yesterday, on their devices, when they chose and will remember moments as fondly as I remember Jim Montgomery. Man City buying Haaland moves the goalposts again for every other team. I’ll state now that no team outside the top 6 or 7 clubs will win the FA Cup again and I find that sad. I have my memories of those 70s and early 80s finals and that will do for me.

      • Yes, when I was growing up, it seemed perfectly normal that second tier teams won the F.A. Cup three times in eight years (in 1973, 76 and 80). It hasn’t happened in the 42 years since then, when Trevor Brooking stooped to nod in a low header against Arsenal.

        • See above. There were a few outliers and also Cardiff got to the final from outside the Premier League not long ago before losing to mighty Portsmouth

            • Their route to the final explains how an outlier can make the final if the draw is in their favour. If they catch one of the big boys in the final though..

              3rd Middlesbrough (A)2–0

              4th Southend United (A)2–0

              5th
              ReplayBrighton & Hove Albion (A)

              Brighton & Hove Albion (H)1–1
              2 – 1

              6thSunderland (H)3–0

              SF Sheffield United (N)5–3

  16. You only have to check the number of winning teams and runners up on the 30 years either side of the start of the EPL (15 different winners from 1962 to 91 vs just nine from 92 to 2022) to see that in this case historically is bunk

    1961–62 Tottenham Hotspur 3–1 Burnley Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1962–63 Manchester United 3–1 Leicester City Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1963–64 West Ham United 3–2 Preston North End Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1964–65 Liverpool 2–1 * Leeds United Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1965–66 Everton 3–2 Sheffield Wednesday Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1966–67 Tottenham Hotspur 2–1 Chelsea Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1967–68 West Bromwich Albion 1–0 * Everton Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1968–69 Manchester City 1–0 Leicester City Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1969–70 Chelsea 2–2 * Leeds United Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    2–1 * (R) Old Trafford 62,078
    1970–71 Arsenal double-dagger 2–1 * Liverpool Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1971–72 Leeds United 1–0 Arsenal Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1972–73 Sunderland 1–0 Leeds United Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1973–74 Liverpool 3–0 Newcastle United Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1974–75 West Ham United 2–0 Fulham Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1975–76 Southampton 1–0 Manchester United Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1976–77 Manchester United 2–1 Liverpool Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1977–78 Ipswich Town 1–0 Arsenal Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1978–79 Arsenal 3–2 Manchester United Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1979–80 West Ham United 1–0 Arsenal Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1980–81 Tottenham Hotspur 1–1 * Manchester City Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    3–2 (R) Wembley Stadium (original) 92,000
    1981–82 Tottenham Hotspur 1–1 * Queens Park Rangers Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1–0 (R) Wembley Stadium (original) 90,000
    1982–83 Manchester United 2–2 * Brighton & Hove Albion Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    4–0 (R) Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1983–84 Everton 2–0 Watford Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1984–85 Manchester United 1–0 * Everton Wembley Stadium (original) 100,000
    1985–86 Liverpool double-dagger 3–1 Everton Wembley Stadium (original) 98,000
    1986–87 Coventry City 3–2 * Tottenham Hotspur Wembley Stadium (original) 98,000
    1987–88 Wimbledon 1–0 Liverpool Wembley Stadium (original) 98,203
    1988–89 Liverpool 3–2 * Everton Wembley Stadium (original) 82,500
    1989–90 Manchester United 3–3 * Crystal Palace Wembley Stadium (original) 80,000
    1–0 (R) Wembley Stadium (original) 80,000
    1990–91 Tottenham Hotspur 2–1 * Nottingham Forest Wembley Stadium (original) 80,000

    1991–92 Liverpool 2–0 Sunderland Wembley Stadium (original) 80,000
    1992–93 Arsenal 1–1 * Sheffield Wednesday Wembley Stadium (original) 79,347
    2–1 * (R) Wembley Stadium (original) 62,267
    1993–94 Manchester United double-dagger 4–0 Chelsea Wembley Stadium (original) 79,634
    1994–95 Everton 1–0 Manchester United Wembley Stadium (original) 79,592
    1995–96 Manchester United double-dagger 1–0 Liverpool Wembley Stadium (original) 79,007
    1996–97 Chelsea 2–0 Middlesbrough Wembley Stadium (original) 79,160
    1997–98 Arsenal double-dagger 2–0 Newcastle United Wembley Stadium (original) 79,183
    1998–99 Manchester United # 2–0 Newcastle United Wembley Stadium (original) 79,101
    1999–2000 Chelsea 1–0 Aston Villa Wembley Stadium (original) 78,217
    2000–01 Liverpool 2–1 Arsenal Millennium Stadium 72,500
    2001–02 Arsenal double-dagger 2–0 Chelsea Millennium Stadium 73,963
    2002–03 Arsenal 1–0 Southampton Millennium Stadium 73,726
    2003–04 Manchester United 3–0 Millwall Millennium Stadium 71,350
    2004–05 Arsenal 0–0 dagger[b] Manchester United Millennium Stadium 71,876
    2005–06 Liverpool 3–3 dagger[c] West Ham United Millennium Stadium 71,140
    2006–07 Chelsea 1–0 * Manchester United Wembley Stadium 89,826
    2007–08 Portsmouth 1–0 Wales Cardiff City Wembley Stadium 89,874
    2008–09 Chelsea 2–1 Everton Wembley Stadium 89,391[17]
    2009–10 Chelsea double-dagger 1–0 Portsmouth Wembley Stadium 88,335[18]
    2010–11 Manchester City 1–0 Stoke City Wembley Stadium 88,643[19]
    2011–12 Chelsea 2–1 Liverpool Wembley Stadium 89,041[20]
    2012–13 Wigan Athletic 1–0 Manchester City Wembley Stadium 86,254[21]
    2013–14 Arsenal 3–2 * Hull City Wembley Stadium 89,345[22]
    2014–15 Arsenal 4–0 Aston Villa Wembley Stadium 89,283[23]
    2015–16 Manchester United 2–1 * Crystal Palace Wembley Stadium 88,619[24]
    2016–17 Arsenal 2–1 Chelsea Wembley Stadium 89,472[25]
    2017–18 Chelsea 1–0 Manchester United Wembley Stadium 87,647[26]
    2018–19 Manchester City § 6–0 Watford Wembley Stadium 85,854[27]
    2019–20 Arsenal 2–1 Chelsea Wembley Stadium 0[d][28]
    2020–21 Leicester City 1–0 Chelsea Wembley Stadium 20,000[e][29]
    2021–22 Liverpool 0–0 dagger[f] Chelsea Wembley Stadium 84,897

        • I am not saying that shocks didn’t happen, but it was relatively unusual even in the 70s and 80s, of course things have changed since Premier League formation but we still had Leicester winning the league which even now hardly seems credible

          • Forest not only went up, but won the European Cup twice. Derby went up and won the league twice, Villa won the European Cup, Ipswich won the UEFA Cup. It was a much more even playing ground in those days. Swansea, Watford and Wimbledon all went from the fourth to the first and had success when they got there, albeit limited for Swansea. Oxford went from the third to the first and then won the League Cup. You can point at smaller teams going up now, but generally only if they are heavily bankrolled, like Bournemouth and Wigan. Teams back in the day did it on the back of getting a good team together and good coaching. Smaller teams can’t keep hold of good players long enough now to build a team to take them through the leagues. Barnsley had a great young centre back in the late 70s in Mick McCarthy. He played 314 games for us before Man City took him off us. 30 years later we held on to John Stones for 28 games.

            If smaller teams got promoted in the Premier League era on footballing ability alone, like Swindon, Barnsley, Bradford, Blackpool, etc, they soon go back down, usually at the first time of asking. Apart from Leicester’s freak season, you rarely get anyone different in the top 6. Too much money goes to too few clubs, and for the lower league clubs to get any slice of the pie, the strings that go with it heavily favour the big clubs, eg the way compensation is paid when they nick young players from lower league clubs’ academies, or the demands they place on loans, having it written into the agreement that they must start every game if they are fit. We just had a defensive midfielder on loan from Man City. A decent player, but no world beater. But his salary was higher than all the defenders and keepers we played behind him all season, combined!

            It’s not gonna change now though, until it all collapses in on itself. Almost every club is in debt, some cripplingly so. How can they justify paying so much more on players’ salaries than their annual turnover?

              • True. Applies to much of the Premier League though and they were still competing with the likes of Man City, Utd and Chelsea who had at least 10 times as much money. Top scorer cost 1 million. That’s a week’s wages for some players (almost)

              • Leicester shouldn’t have even been in the Premiership. They were laughing in the face of Financial Fair Play, with debts of over £100m in the Championship, before a quick dodgy deal wiped it out. Then again, the teams in the Championship that don’t go into debt and stay within the rules/their means are usually the teams that go down (us, Rotherham, Peterborough, etc). Hence I’m hoping Luton go up this season. They are up there on merit.

    • Thanks. I hadn’t realised quite what a cup team Chelsea are. I make that 9 finals in 15 years, with 4 wins (and currently 3 defeats in a row). 5 finals in 6 seasons.

  17. Now, where did I put my pipe? *Saucecraft, open goal alert*

    The first Cup Final I remember was West Brom v. Preston North End, 1954. Tom Finny and Tommy Docherty were playing for PNE. The excitement of gathering round someone’s little tv to watch it was even greater than the Coronation the year before. Because West Brom won 3-2 I decided they were the best team in the world, even though I lived 150 miles away. I supported them for a couple of years and always wore imaginary blue and white stripes when kicking around in the playground. If you’d told me that 67 years later I’d merely watch the highlights on YouTube I’d have told you you were dreaming.

    When I discovered I could actually go and see league matches in my home town I transferred my allegiance to Southend United. If only the rest were history…

  18. Is top level football worse now? It all depends on how you look at it.

    In terms of pace, skill and tactical nous, the game is levels above where it was 15 years ago, let alone the 1970s. The football you’re watching is the best ever played anywhere, to the point that it’s almost become an entirely different sport to the thing you might do down the park with your mates of a weekend.

    In terms of the match day experience, it’s far better too: less violence, less horrendous racism, less most other-isms, less risk of being crushed to death because the police hate you on sight, or showered with piss because you’ve got the wrong shirt on.

    The owners of the clubs are far worse, the money involved has set the game adrift from “the common man”, and you can make a good argument that it’s less exciting – we all know roughly who will win the title most seasons, and there are only really a handful of teams who can aspire to win the European Cup. Plus, the World Cup is a shadow of what once it was.

    For me, and this is probably a function of age, there was a sweet spot with top flight football somewhere around the late 90s. The stadiums weren’t too dangerous any more, we’d started seeing exciting foreign players enter the league, there was enough money that we got decent TV coverage, but not so much that the whole thing felt entirely corrupted, the levels of technique were visibly increasing exponentially, and the top flight saw what felt like a constant series of classic title races and matches. Plus, my own club were pretty handy for some of that time, which didn’t hurt.

    The change in the game accelerated with the entry of oil money, and then again with the legacy of Pep’s Barcelona. The latter were the point at which systems began to become more important than individual talent (albeit, not in the case of the actual Barca, due to Messi), and that’s been the trend ever since. The genius you relied on to win you games stopped being the bloke with his socks rolled down and the number 10 shirt on his back, and became the bloke on the sidelines with all the diagrams and frantic arm gestures. If you’re a tactics-head, I bet it’s heaven, but I do miss the days when you could watch some of the best players in the world express themselves freely in a more haphazard fashion. Sometimes a game like that breaks out, but it generally feels like an aberration to which the coaching staff will swiftly put a stop.

    As in all things; that’s progress. Some of it is good, some of it is bad. It’s generally best to focus on the former, rather than lamenting the latter. I thought the cup final was very entertaining, and I’m always amenable to watching such affairs settled by penalties, so long as my own lot aren’t involved.

    • On your last point – I’d agree unless my lot win. Then it is just about the best way to win (probably just behind a last minute of added time winner) because of the tension and then release. It’s great theatre.

      The rest, I would agree with. My personal sweet spot was probably the first half of the 90’s (it helps when your team wins the top division a year after being promoted), But the 90’s started with Italia 90 (the best world cup?) and ended with Man United’s fantastic Champions League win. Even Woking FC were brilliant in the 90’s.

      Progress is called progress for a reason.

      • The 90s were just flat out a really good moment for football. The progress made in ten years was bewildering, and right at the tail end you had the 98 World Cup, which was a truly great tournament.

        There as also the adventure of English teams being readmitted to European football; it was thrilling to watch Man Utd, on their way to a double, get taken to school by Barcelona away in 94. Pallister and Bruce had clearly never seen anything like Romario up to that point, and nor had most UK viewing audiences. The way he completely deads Pallister on the second goal: oof. The touch to set up the third: double oof.

    • One thing I’d point out is that a greater standard of play doesn’t automatically make for a more entertaining spectacle. I watch a lot of non-league football and although the players are several rungs below premier league standard, you see a lot of entertaining contests.

      I too have a fondness for the 90s, where you could still be a bit unfit and and a bit of a character, but still perform. Le Tissier and Fowler were the last of that era I feel.

      Elite sport is so ultra-professional now, that it does tend to iron out some of the character. I love reading biographies of sportsmen from back in the day, but read Messi’s book and all he does is play football or play on his Playstation.

      • Hence all the interest these days in managers, who seem much more likely to be weirdos. It’s a bit like pop music – eg Simon Cowell being many times more famous than the interchangeable acts he manages.

      • This is spot on.

        The strange truth of football is you’d just as gladly beat your local rivals with a savage last minute winner that caroms off a beachball, hits their captain in the face and trickles over the line, as with a display of great skill and ability.

        Football is, and should be chaos. It’s very interesting watching people bring order to the chaos, but it’s also unnatural. The Championship is a far, far more entertaining league to watch than the Premier League, and far closer to the core spirit of the sport.

        I can think of games I’ve watched at local 5 a side pitches that beat anything I’ve ever seen in the top flight; wild, dramatic, harum-scarum contests with all sorts of audacious tricks and flicks, last minute winners, right handers and wild celebrations. Football, done right, is 60% passion, 40% skill – which is one of the reasons VAR is such an abomination.

        • There is much in what you say, Bingo.
          I watch the Championship live as a season ticket holder (this year has been very thin gruel it must be said) & agree that the ‘oomph’ factor definitely outweighs any notions of it being ‘a science’.
          An almost silent home crowd can be transformed in moments when one of the side just goes for it, rescuing the game from the doldrums & perhaps winning a corner. This buzz is transferred to the players instantly & you can almost see the hairs going up on the back of their necks as the whole vibe changes – assured defences are now skittish & worried & previously aimless opponents suddenly become galvanised & purposeful- this is the ‘chaos’ I think you’re invoking & it’s why live games are still worth going to.
          Some of the biggest roars I heard this season were when the 4th Official held up the board saying ‘6 minutes’ to be added onto the 90 with the home side chasing an equaliser & having finally woken up after playing dross.
          And funnily enough, something concrete usually does occur ( with the entire crowd asking each other ‘why couldn’t they do this an hour ago?’).
          It’s why folk keep going back ( I renewed my ST a week ago after a season that made going feel like a chore half the time). You can’t predict it, & you can’t read a review in advance, like for a movie. It’s just possible you may witness the greatest game of your life ( however unlikely that is).
          Long may the chaos persist!

        • Well said Bingo.

          VAR is the result of a media culture that thinks referees are there to get everything right, rather than make a call to the best of their ability.

          Fans will accept a £50m striker shanking shots into the stand, but won’t accept a linesman getting an offside call wrong by a matter of inches.

          I think people should try refereeing if they get the chance. It is extremely difficult and the guys at the top are the best of the best.

      • I’ve watched Jack Grealish quite closely this season and you can almost see him concentrating so hard on his instructions that he forgets what got him there. At Villa he had free reign to create the havoc we love. At City I feel he’s just over thinking everything. He’s the sort of player I would pay good money to see but he’s become a little lost in a system. Maybe next season will see him a little more free.

    • I honestly can’t decide whether it is better overall, although on any logical metric the skill, safety, pitches, ability to see the game (‘what did the Romans ever do for us?) etc. but something has definitely been lost that’s had to pin down, & is probably mostly to do with supporters direct connection to their clubs – if I’d been old enough, I could have got sloshed with Osgood, Hudson & Hutchinson after the match at a pub in the Kings Road in the ‘70’s – unthinkable now, obviously.
      Another pointer to how much has changed is that Hunter Davies confidently & reasonably declared at some point in that decade that no London team would ever win the European Cup. The logic was that as the capital has approximately 12 clubs it would be impossible for all the resources required to be concentrated to that end – whether by crowd sizes generating income or because of investment from money men. He felt the fact that the big northern & midlands clubs didn’t dilute support in their respective cities, meant that they were the only ones that would ever have a shout.
      Entirely logical at the time, & impossible to predict the genuinely crazy money that has altered everything ever since.

  20. There’s been barely a fag paper between Liverpool & Chelsea over the two finals, and I couldn’t have complained if we’d ended up with a trophy apiece, but needless to say I was delighted.

    • I thought it was a terrific game on Saturday & was pleasantly surprised that my lot rose the occasion to make a real fist of it, given how good Liverpool are this season. I feared a roasting beforehand.
      After the first harrowing 15-20 minutes I thought it was pretty even & a good example of how it takes 2 sides to make a proper clash.
      Having said that, all in yellow? Dreadful idea, as was starting with Lukaku, who ‘put in a shift’ as the pundits like to say, but I couldn’t see scoring even if they’d still been playing now!

      • I thought Mason Mount had a good game. The commentator produced some unfortunate stat about him losing six Wembley finals on the spin. All I’ll say is that Klopp once had a similar record in finals….

  22. Can I just say something in praise of the Afterword? There are 138 comments on this thread from fans of various different clubs, and yet there’s no nastiness, no using tragedies to score points, no mocking poverty, no accusations of cheating, no suggestion that fans of a particular club are somehow uniquely malevolent, etc…You get the picture.

    • Spot on Jim.
      I can’t bear going onto ‘fan forums’ as they really seem to embody the worst kind of cretinous tribalism imaginable & the comments below the line on Guardian match reports are often little better.
      It’s refreshing to have an actual conversation about what is still a marvellous game, regardless of all the guff that surrounds it, without the predictable crap beloved of the lowest common denominator types.
      It’s nice to see it can still be a source of common ground & passion which is definitely how it should be.

Leave a Reply