Saturday, May 14, 2011
THE POOR old FA Cup has been subjected to more battering in recent years than the Spanish version which Sergio Ramos let fall under the wheels of the Real Madrid bus.
Yet, somehow the shine still manages to poke through, even though, in the latest insult, today’s Wembley decider between Stoke City and Manchester City finds itself shoehorned into a day of Premier League action in order to facilitate the hosting of the upcoming Champions League final at Wembley.
And that on top of already hard-pressed supporters being asked to shell out over £100 (€113) for the first time ever for tickets for what was traditionally considered the people’s day out in the football calendar.
Yet, the presence of Stoke City in the first FA Cup final in their history coupled with Manchester City’s bid to finally end that infamous 35 year trophy drought, has created a buzz about today’s game which goes a long way to reconnecting the fixture with its fabled history, despite the brutal dislocations in the modern era caused by a variety of well-documented factors including Manchester United’s withdrawal from the competition in 1999/2000, the saturation coverage of football on television and the priority now given to finishing fourth in the Premier League over what used to be called Cup glory.
All football fans have grown up with an intimate feel for the myth and magic of the FA Cup final, so much so that you could almost convince yourself you’d been there in the flesh to see that lone white horse holding back a tide of humanity in 1923, Stanley Matthews making the 1953 final synonymous with himself as Blackpool came back from the dead to beat Bolton, and goalkeeper Bert Trautmann playing on with a broken neck to help Manchester City to victory against Birmingham three years later.
Incidentally, I’d always imagined that the reports of the extent of Trautmann’s injury — incurred 16 minutes from the end of the game when he dived at the feet of Birmingham’s Peter Murphy — must have been subjected to a little historical gilding of the lily.
Not a bit of it: he spent weeks encased in plaster after the game and was told he would never play top-class football again — a prognosis which, happily, he was able to defy.
For anyone interested in finding out more about the man, the remarkable story of the Nazi-worshipping paratrooper who transformed himself into a sporting hero in England after the war, is told in full in Catherine Clay’s highly recommended book ‘Trautmann’s Journey — From Hitler Youth To FA Cup Legend’ (Yellow Jersey Press).
For yours truly, the FA Cup final first exerted its grip on my boyhood imagination at the start of the 1970s when, after a marathon battle — in every sense of the word — Chelsea finally got the better of Leeds United in a replay at Old Trafford.
The following year, it was Arsenal v Liverpool, with Ireland’s Steve Heighway beating Bob Wilson at his near post to give Liverpool the lead on a sun-splashed day which will always be remembered for Charlie George’s fabulous winner and iconic goal celebration, the long-haired Gunner lying flat on the turf on his back calmly awaiting the acclaim of his team-mates.
Then there was Second Division Sunderland’s shock defeat of mighty Leeds in 1973 and, bringing a suitably dramatic close to a vintage decade for the FA Cup, the Liam Brady-inspired Arsenal’s last ditch 3-2 win against Manchester United in 1979.
Television was the FA Cup final’s best friend back then, the day-long build-up making it, for all football-obsessed kids, the third part of an annual holy trinity completed by Christmas and birthday.
It’s astonishing to think that, right up until the 1980s, and outside of World Cups, there were only three football matches games broadcast live on television in any given year – the European Cup final, the FA Cup final and England v Scotland in the Home International Championships.
Now, of course, football on television is about as ubiquitous as the weather forecast, and not always as exciting, so some of the unique sheen of FA Cup final day has inevitably been tarnished, even without the bad governance which has only served to make a bad situation worse.
Still, none of that will deter the thousands of fans who’ll journey south to London for the 2011 finale.
Stoke v Man City as is about as close as two teams in the Premier League will get to giving us the kind of David v Goliath contest which has played such a huge part in the competition’s appeal down all the years.
With their passionate support and team bereft of superstars, Stoke will be the neutrals’ pick to finally end their FA Cup drought — and the fact that they have such a strong Irish component in their ranks won’t dilute their support on this side of the water one little bit.
Man City , of course, will be obliged to play the role of bad guys, the latest moneybags merchants almost everyone will want to see knocked off their perch before they even get a chance to settle on it.
But that’s not how it will be for City fans on what could be a real blue moon day for them — a chance, finally, to tear down that Stretford End banner which taunts them for 35 years, and counting, of having nothing in the trophy cabinet to show for themselves.
As on so many days of yore, Wembley will be two seas of red and blue for the FA Cup final, proof of the resilience of an event which, despite all the depredations to which it has been subjected in recent years, somehow continues to lay claim to its historical legacy as the people’s game.
All we can hope now is that the players give them one to remember today.
- Contact: liammackey@hotmail.com
© Examiner Publications (Cork) Limited, City Quarter, Lapps Quay, Cork. Registered in Ireland: 73385.
