It’s the 17th May 2014 and today is the FA Cup Final. This morning I flicked on Twitter, flashed out a few weak jokes about the traditions of FA Cup Final days of the past - cramp and the hours of pre-match build up on TV, both channels, in fact. This is all lost. I read a few similar tweets from those who seem to lament the loss of the magic.
And then I tidied the house.
As I did, something stirred in me. The weather was beautiful, absolutely perfect FA Cup weather, all that seemed to be missing was, well, the FA Cup Final magic. I continued my chores and realised something. The FA Cup Final is loved as you might a dead relative, something from the past that has been taken from us. Just a week earlier I joined the rest of social media in the great cultural melange that is Eurovision. Eurovision isn’t a song contest, it’s not even a geopolitics dressed up in sparkles, it is neither good nor bad, it is Eurovision and it hasn’t changed for decades and it thrives because of it.
So, I got thinking, and then I got Googling. There doesn’t appear to be a single fan site dedicated to the FA Cup. It strikes me that we’ve surrendered the magic to corporates and TV companies. And yet, the FA Cup is our Superbowl, our Christmas, our Eurovision. It is the most popular sport on the planet and English club football which is envied around the world. How can we have given it up tamely?
Well, perhaps there’s something we can do about it. Perhaps we can bring the magic back. Have the French given up on the Tour de France, have the Spanish given up on running with the bulls of Pamploma? Have the Italians given up on the Palio Di Siena?
The answer to all these questions is no, of course not. So why have we given up on the FA Cup?
