The Saturday of the FA Cup 3rd Round is one of my favourite days within the football calendar. It is a contender with the opening day of the season, Boxing Day fixtures, Survival Sunday, and of course the Cup Final itself. People argue that the Cup has lost some of its glamour and romanticism, and to an extent I do agree. When you speak to ardent supporters with decades of support behind them, they will talk to you about their thrill and excitement of Cup Final day, a day when the television coverage began hours early, usually in the morning of the special day. Whereas nowadays, the game is treated like any other and the appeal appears to only be held by those supporters whose teams are involved in the game. To me then, the media has been just as detrimental in destroying the famous trophy’s glamour as the investment the money, globalisation and expansion of Sky and the Premier League, a topic I imagine may regularly crop up in football-based discussions on this blog.
The same can be said of the 3rd Round of the Cup. Notorious for Cup upsets by lower league opposition on a freezing January afternoon, whilst playing on a muddy, boggy pitch in a small, intimate stadium packed to the rafters with frenetic supporters. That just does not seem to happen anymore. The media try to build it up, recalling the famous memories of years gone by; pulling out the archives of Ronnie Radford’s strike for Hereford against Newcastle, and Mickey Thomas’ free-kick to send Wrexham through at the expense of Arsenal, but they seem to ignore the modern day upsets of which the achievements could be argued to be on par with those gone by. Shrewsbury defeating Everton in 2003, Leeds (admittedly a ‘big’ club but in the third tier of the Football League at the time) knocking out Manchester United at Old Trafford only two seasons ago. Both times major Premier League clubs with a strong FA Cup pedigree being dispatched. Why are these achievements ignored? Maybe it is because they are seen as “too modern” (however you define that!), or perhaps they just did not fully accomplish the “traditional” Cup upset check-list. However, if these shocks are not used soon then the new, young generations of football fans will be unable to associate and relate to the FA Cup, further damaging its splendour.
Thankfully, I do not think the 3rd Round will ever fully lose its romanticism. Not for a while anyway. This is due to those lower, and non-league clubs and their supporters who thrive for their opportunity of a major pay-day and chance in the limelight against one of the big boys. The problem remains if those Premier League clubs continue to dismiss the competition as an inconvenience, rather than chasing the prestige and honour of winning it in style. If they do so, their fan-bases, which naturally because of their success are also the biggest, will be brainwashed to have the same opinion. That is when the appeal in the Cup will decline, though as previously mentioned, this is already the case. I do not want rules to be introduced (as has been mooted by some members of the football community) that force clubs to play their first-choice eleven, as that would be the most damning verdict of the Cup romanticism being ruined. I understand clubs need to rotate; I just hate to see teams practically forfeiting the right to continue their progression in the competition. If you are going to go out, go out with a fight. The lower league sides do it, the least the Premier League (and even some Championship) teams can do is provide that, if only to make those special Cup upsets feel even more like a fairytale for those fortunate enough to deliver them.
Now you might be now considering me to be a lower-league supporter. Maybe one whose side has created a recent upset and feels they have not been given the credit they deserve for it. Or maybe one at the other end of the scale; a supporter who continues to wait, and wish for that glamorous 3rd round fixture, that will send my local town into a frenzy. But far from it; I am, for my sins, an Aston Villa fan. We have had some recent Cup runs, but more often than not, we suffer a defeat to Manchester United once we enter the competition. I have seen us suffer to lower league opposition, against Sheffield United in 2005; in fact the first time I saw Villa play in the flesh was nearly a Cup upset, against then third-tier Portsmouth in 1998. Therefore this argument is not based on a concern of seeing my own dreams ruined. I am a football fan, and a passionate one at that. I want the FA Cup to remain the heart-beat of English football, a competition that the rest of the world watches on with envy, one that causes excitement and despair for clubs all over the country, no matter what their status; because football is for all, and the FA Cup is the best way we can represent that.
On that note, congratulations to third-tier Swindon Town who won on FA Cup 3rd Round Saturday in 2012 provided the best Cup upset by dispatching Premier League, Wigan Athletic. Unfortunately, because of Wigan's lack of history and the team they sent out, it is likely to be a shock remembered only briefly, but it is always satisfying to see the Cup still likes to fulfil the dreams of David defeating Goliath.
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