Dave Woodhall on the FA Cup and Villa winning.
There’s so much you can say about the FA Cup third round, and most of it gets said at this time every year. All the clichés are there – how it’s lost its magic, how the clubs, FA and TV companies have conspired to reduce its importance, how attendances reflect that apathy.
I witnessed a bit of this on Saturday when my train stopped at the Hawthorns just before 1.30 and nobody getting off seemed to be going to Albion’s match with Gateshead. They had a gate of 16,593 despite a new manager and the perverse attraction of non-league opponents.
I’m not picking out Albion here, because every other club in a similar situation have low attendances, but the fact is that there was a time when Albion versus a non-league side would have seen a sell-out crowd and an occasion that would have been talked about for years. Every other top-flight could say the same but now, the fear factor I mentioned last week has run riot throughout every team in the Premier League.
For example, Newcastle and Sunderland haven’t won a trophy between them since God’s dog was a puppy and they’ve not got much chance of relegation yet even that slim fear is enough to send them into cup ties with weakened sides. Well, that fear coupled with the fact that the chance of immortality is outweighed by a cold, hard realisation that winning the FA Cup means less in financial terms than finishing a few places higher in the league and Thursday night Europe League trips to Georgia and Azerbaijan are more trouble than they’re worth.
It’s not just the clubs’ fault. The FA couldn’t have made a better job of downgrading their premier competition if they’d tried. Their latest novelty, to play the ties over five days, was treated with the contempt it deserved by supporters, as if we count.
And on that note Villa played out ninety minutes plus stoppages on Sunday afternoon against Blackpool, bottom of the Championship and with their supporters in revolt against a particularly odious ownership. We won and that’s the only positive thing that can be said on the subject. We’re now 4½ hours from Wembley, which is probably closer than we are to another goal.
The fourth round draw takes place tonight, at the traditional time of 7.33pm. Robbie Savage will be involved somewhere.