FA Cup...lost it's magic?

[brownie4583]

Leading up to the FA Cup 1st round weekend,do you think it has lost it's magic of previous years?
At one time going to the FA Cup final at Wembley,and lifting the cup was every lad and players dream,but nowadays premiership teams field weakened sides only bothered about a top 4 finish and the champions league millions!
In the old days top flight teams usually played their strongest 11 available,but now lower league teams can only beat basically their 2nd string,not like a proper 'scalp' previously!
I think Man Utd started it's demise by pulling out to play abroad a few years ago.
For me,cup final day was the best day of the season when i was a lad,used to watch it on tv all day from early in the morning.
Only teams that take it seriously now are prem teams that won't win the championship!
Do you miss the magic of the fa cup?

 

[Damski]

It's still just as good.

 

[vorpal blade]

What is the AF Cup?

 

[Kenilworth]

Stuart Hall on it's an FA Cup Knock Out

Used to be funny to the point of tears at one time.

He aint laughing now.

 

[Gibbo89]

Haven't had any interest in the FA cup for a while now (or the Premiership or the Championship ). Maybe if we had a good side with a chance of a run in the FA cup I might get my interest back. Just as long as we didn't get to the final. Couldn't do with Wembley again

 

[FleaPitBlade]

I hope we get to the final and lose. A cup final defeat is the last box I need to tick on my list of SUFC glorious failures.

 

[Damski]

I love the FA Cup. I'm a sucker for the underdog in football (Probably best I support SUFC then, eh) and it was so good to see Wigan winning it last season. The great thing about the FA Cup is that unlike the EPL, it's not all tied up in the Man UTD/City/Chelsea/Arsenal clusterfuck. You get other teams winning it. Same with the league cup. Man UTD won the EPL last season. AGAIN. Wigan and Swansea won the cup competitions, each for their first ever major trophy. That's worth something, at least.

 

[Silent Blade]

It's still just as good.

You must be a young lad. FA Cup matches used to draw bigger crowds than league matches

 

[Damski]

You must be a young lad. FA Cup matches used to draw bigger crowds than league matches

I'll concede that I know nothing of club football before the mid-90's. I'm 26, so I missed the 60's/70's/80's that my dad and his buddies still talk of with glassy-eyed nostalgia. I'm sure it was great. But I still think the FA Cup is magic, for the reason I just said - Far more teams are capable of winning that than the Premier League.

 

[Gibbo89]

Sadly not as much the case as it used to be. Maybe there will be upsets early on while the top clubs play squad teams. But come the later rounds nowadays it's so unlikely anyone outside the Prem will lift the cup.

 

[Damski]

Okay, that's fair. But Wigan? Can you imagine how incredible that weekend was for their fans? Let's ignore what happened 4 days later. That's the biggest party they'd have ever had. They're never gonna get to that level with the EPL.

 

[Gibbo89]

Going back even before my time

The Royal Engineers Association Football Club is an association football team representing the Corps of Royal Engineers, the "Sappers", of the British Army. In the 1870s it was one of the strongest sides in English football, winning the FA Cup in 1875 and being Cup Finalists in four of the first eight seasons of the competition. The Engineers were pioneers of the "combination game", where team-mates passed the ball to each other rather than kicking ahead and charging after the ball.

Wimbledon before their time eh? 1988 1-0

 

[Gibbo89]

i know what you mean about Wigan and yes it was great for their fans but it used to be far more an even playing field than it is now even though the top sides usually played their best teams. There is so much of a gap now that Melchester Rovers and Roy Race wouldn't even get a look in

 

[Jehovah]

It stopped being good when we became shit and couldn't get anywhere

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

I get the feeling that playing matches is a genuine inconvenience for some modern day footballers.

I mean what's the point in busting your bollocks and trying to win anything when even the likes of shit League One players get paid thousands of pounds a week for doing sod all regardless of whether you win, lose or draw.

 

[The Fox]

In order of general media coverage the Order of things goes something like
Champions league
Premier league
Internationals
FA cup
Championship
Capital one cup
Rugby union
League 1
League 2

In which case the FA cup is still sits some positions above a league match in order of national conscience

 

[s35blade]

Leading up to the FA Cup 1st round weekend,do you think it has lost it's magic of previous years?
At one time going to the FA Cup final at Wembley,and lifting the cup was every lad and players dream,but nowadays premiership teams field weakened sides only bothered about a top 4 finish and the champions league millions!
In the old days top flight teams usually played their strongest 11 available,but now lower league teams can only beat basically their 2nd string,not like a proper 'scalp' previously!
I think Man Utd started it's demise by pulling out to play abroad a few years ago.
For me,cup final day was the best day of the season when i was a lad,used to watch it on tv all day from early in the morning.
Only teams that take it seriously now are prem teams that won't win the championship!
Do you miss the magic of the fa cup?

Do i miss the magic of the FA cup? Yes.

 

[Gibbo89]

Maybe but if you look at the gates for fa cup games nowadays nobodies really bothered unless a big side's involved or it's the later rounds. Used to look forward to 3rd round Satday more than the opening league game. The glamours gone. For me you can take the champions league, premier league and internationals and shove them but the fa cup aint the same any more.

 

[dublin 10 blade]

It stopped being good when we became shit and couldn't get anywhere

After 1890 then .

 

[BladeFisher]

After 1890 then .

No 1925!

 

[sothall blade]

Haven't had any interest in the FA cup for a while now (or the Premiership or the Championship ). Maybe if we had a good side with a chance of a run in the FA cup I might get my interest back. Just as long as we didn't get to the final. Couldn't do with Wembley again

did you have to mention wembley,i had just forgot about that !

 

[sothall blade]

it must have lost something,as they want to play it when just about everyone is going out on the piss

 

[brownie4583]

I love the FA Cup. I'm a sucker for the underdog in football (Probably best I support SUFC then, eh) and it was so good to see Wigan winning it last season. The great thing about the FA Cup is that unlike the EPL, it's not all tied up in the Man UTD/City/Chelsea/Arsenal clusterfuck. You get other teams winning it. Same with the league cup. Man UTD won the EPL last season. AGAIN. Wigan and Swansea won the cup competitions, each for their first ever major trophy. That's worth something, at least.

Yes but teams like those take it more seriously than the top 4,so most likely winners now probably be Everton,Spurs,Liverpool,their only chance of winning a trophy!
The top teams play weakened teams resting players for league and champs league matches etc

 

[Kev Gee]

I love the FA Cup. I'm a sucker for the underdog in football (Probably best I support SUFC then, eh) and it was so good to see Wigan winning it last season. The great thing about the FA Cup is that unlike the EPL, it's not all tied up in the Man UTD/City/Chelsea/Arsenal clusterfuck. You get other teams winning it. Same with the league cup. Man UTD won the EPL last season. AGAIN. Wigan and Swansea won the cup competitions, each for their first ever major trophy. That's worth something, at least.

The reason they win it is because the bigger teams dont give a flying one about it.

 

[Grecian2000]

My favourite competition. Always has been, always will be.

If we ever get to Wembley (not in the Mediocrity Bowl or League Cup) then I'll be in floods by the time Abide With Me has finished.

To think that finishing fourth in the League is now considered a bigger acheivement than winning the FA Cup perfectly indicates how mediocrity has taken over the game (except where wage levels are concerned).

 

[Darren]

The reason they win it is because the bigger teams dont give a flying one about it.

Cup winners since the PL came in:

93: Arsenal
94: Man Utd
95: Everton
96: Man Utd
97: Chelsea
98: Arsenal
99: Man Utd
00: Chelsea
01: Liverpool
02: Arsenal
03: Arsenal
04: Man Utd
05: Arsenal
06: Liverpool
07: Chelsea
08: Portsmouth
09: Chelsea
10: Chelsea
11: Man City
12: Chelsea
13: Wigan

So, out of 21 seasons in only 3 seasons has a non big boy won it (1995, 2008, 2013). Even if they don't take it that seriously, the top PL teams win it in 6 seasons out of 7.

 

[BornOnShorehamStreet]

I wonder if it might be anything to with the large number of foreign players in our game who care only for the Premier League and little for the two cup competitions we have. If they cared, they'd surely be clamouring for inclusion in the team.
Incidentally, to the poster who said that most Premier League teams play second string teams and a giant-killing act isn't what it used to be, don't forget that those second string teams are very, very good! Certainly not reserve teams as we used to know them. Giant killing is still possible!

 

[Darren]

It's actually quite common for a "little" team to get to the final and then beaten by a big boy:

runners up since 1993:

93: Sheff Wed
94: Chelsea
95: Man Utd
96: Liverpool
97: Middlesbrough
98: Newcastle
99: Newcastle
00: Villa
01: Arsenal
02: Chelsea
03: Southampton
04: Millwall
05: Man Utd
06: West Ham
07: Man Utd
08: Cardiff
09: Everton
10: Portsmouth
11: Stoke
12: Liverpool
13: Man City

If we define the big boys as Chelsea, Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool and post Saudi wealth Man City, then , then 12 out of 21 beaten finalists have been non big boys. Man Utd in 95 and Man City last year are the only big boy finalist beaten by a non big boy.

 

[moDtheGod]

Big boy.

 

[DazBlade88]

To think that finishing fourth in the League is now considered a bigger acheivement than winning the FA Cup perfectly indicates how mediocrity has taken over the game (except where wage levels are concerned).

For me, this is one of the biggest reasons for money ruining football.

The Champions League prize money is insane. If you win ONE group fixture you're give 1 million Euros, and 500,000 Euros for a draw. If you reach the group stage you've already bagged 11 million Euros in prize money before TV revenue, ticket sales etc. That's why teams go for that more than The FA Cup now.

If we win on Saturday, we get a whopping £18,000 and the overall winner would get £1.8m for that game, and a total of just under that for the other 5 rounds before it.

I think it's lost some of it's magic on a nationwide scale, but I still love it personally. TV and the money involved have ruined alot of it but you can't beat the early rounds when non-league teams play league sides at home. Going back to last season when Wigan won it and were relegated in the same week, if we were in that situation I'd have been happier winning The FA Cup and being relegated than the other way around!