Is the FA Cup still a magical mystery tour?

EVERY time the third round proper of the FA Cup comes round, newspapers and media outlets here, there and everywhere decide to question the value of the cup, claim that the magic is gone and that good old yesteryear was much better with its sepia tones, short shorts and awful haircuts.

While the haircuts are still atrocious (see Coutinho’s latest offering), the regurgitation of this FA Cup mourning is not just tiresome, it is becoming sickening.

Today, I have already seen a poll on whether the FA Cup still matters as well as comments from Sam Allardyce, Roberto Martinez and Paul Lambert on whether the cup is important. This is brought about by questions from journalists who want to write about the fading importance of the FA Cup at this time of year every year.

It is a process which allows them to gush over the ‘good old days’ of football with the Matthews Final and all that. It also helps to make more and more people less interested in the FA Cup. If you repeatedly tell people that the competition was better in the past and it is now meaningless, they will not just believe it, they will feel it and experience it.

Every year that goes by, the competition feels diminished as another article looks to show how the cup has been devalued further. Each weakened team fielded is another bullet to put into the back of the first ever football competition.

Of course, it is acceptable to lament the change from past to present as old favourites are replaced by something new and different. But to continue to carry that weight of the football past is foolish. The football landscape changed long ago. The worship of the Champions League began well over a decade ago and as its importance has increased in terms of column inches, general public interest and financial reward.

The FA Cup has suffered as a result. Those FA Cup final songs have gone and across the universe there is no desire for anyone to watch the team buses make their journeys to Wembley. However, to indulge in some form of vigil for this passing of an era every year is as pointless as it is pathetic.

In seeking to reminisce over the glory days of the cup, they are aiding and abetting the disinterest in the competition rather than helping to cultivate the feeling they so wish to capture. Journalists can pine for the theatre of the FA Cup that pulled them into football as youngsters but they should restrict such outpourings of misery to friends, relatives or anyone else who is willing to listen to this repetitive garbage.

Inevitably, we will be faced with another dose of whether the FA Cup retains it’s ‘magic’. What is meant by this is: has the distortion of competition in favour of the wealthy clubs, who have the greatest talent, reduced the chances of small clubs overcoming them in the competition? Or to put it more patently has cash made big clubs less beatable?

The answer is of course yes but that doesn’t meant that these results do not happen. Are we likely to see a non-league side beat a Premier League side – no. But it didn’t happen very often anyway.

And yet for all the obituaries written about the FA Cup, Liverpool, a team who have won the cup on 7 occasions, were knocked out by yesterday’s opponents, Oldham, last year. But the question of the magic of the FA Cup should not be so limited. The cup should be memorable for the games.

Liverpool have had some wonderful moments in the not too distant past. An unbelievable match between the Reds and Havant & Waterlooville in which the away team scored two goals at Anfield, leading the game twice, was a wonderful example of the greatness of the competition. And if that isn’t enough for you, how about the last FA Cup lifted by Liverpool in 2006? A 3-3 draw with West Ham Utd in one of the greatest finals of all time. And that’s just looking at one team’s recent FA Cup history.

Ask Wigan fans if they think the FA Cup win was insignificant or indeed consider whether Cardiff and Milwall thought their runs to the final in 2008 and 2004 respectively were worthless. Every fan wishes to see their team lift that old trophy like dreamers do.

But with football all things must pass. Competitions change, the rules change, the fans change but the game still continues and the real thing that makes it glorious endures. Those are the goals, the incredible moments of skill, the drama of last minute winners, the small team over coming the big team. These continue to endure because football is a sport and sporting competition will always bring about these moments.

The FA Cup may not be that same trophy in the eyes of many in the media who succumb to visions of nostalgia but it is still a great competition. Let it be for now.