English FA Cup 2017

[laoislad]

FA Cup has always been an anomaly.Great managers like Clough and Paisley never won it.Second division teams like Sunderland and Southampton won it against the odds in the 1970s.The fact that up to the 90s only Spurs and Arsenal managed to do the double in the 20th Century shows how difficult it was for teams with good league records to sustain a cup run,even more so nowadays when they might have Champions League to contend with as well.

Romance in the old days was largely due to it being the only televised club game live all year.

Eh....Liverpool 1986....

[J70]

FA Cup has always been an anomaly.Great managers like Clough and Paisley never won it.Second division teams like Sunderland and Southampton won it against the odds in the 1970s.The fact that up to the 90s only Spurs and Arsenal managed to do the double in the 20th Century shows how difficult it was for teams with good league records to sustain a cup run,even more so nowadays when they might have Champions League to contend with as well.

Romance in the old days was largely due to it being the only televised club game live all year.

Well, Liverpool won the double in '86 (and should have won two more in the late 80s) but your point is taken.

[magpie seanie]

FA Cup has always been an anomaly.Great managers like Clough and Paisley never won it.Second division teams like Sunderland and Southampton won it against the odds in the 1970s.The fact that up to the 90s only Spurs and Arsenal managed to do the double in the 20th Century shows how difficult it was for teams with good league records to sustain a cup run,even more so nowadays when they might have Champions League to contend with as well.

Romance in the old days was largely due to it being the only televised club game live all year.

Well, Liverpool won the double in '86 (and should have won two more in the late 80s) but your point is taken.

To be fair it was like someone hacked Tony's account it was such a reasonable post. 

[magpie seanie]

I can tell you United and their supporters were glad to win this trophy last season. The withdrawal in 2000 was instructed by FIFA/FA and is overstated as a reason for the demise of the competition.

The rest of your reasons are bang on. Penalty shoot outs being introduced was awful.

[J70]

I can tell you United and their supporters were glad to win this trophy last season. The withdrawal in 2000 was instructed by FIFA/FA and is overstated as a reason for the demise of the competition.

The rest of your reasons are bang on. Penalty shoot outs being introduced was awful.

I'd forgotten United had won it last year. Thought Arsenal had taken last two, when of course it was the pair before that!

I agree with Rufus. I've little interest in it. If Liverpool were to go through and play a big side in the semi or final, or even get to the semi or final, I'd care and hope they'd win, but apart from possibly getting drawn against United, I don't really give a bollocks about it otherwise.

[thewobbler]

I'd think that once a team gets to a semi final then of course they'll want to win it. That's just human nature. I won a junior B championship last year (15 years after my previous one) and I celebrated it like an All Ireland win. But here I'd trade it and a lifetime of junior Bs for a single Down SFC, which is where the FA Cup has arrived at.

I do love the phrase the "magic of the cup".

The media hype that created this "magic" fed the monster that became SKY and brought us such tripe as "Red Monday".

Basically a bunch of middle-aged men talking about about how brilliant football is, until you start to doubt yourself if you don't believe them. And that's when the rest of the media join in.

The "magic" was always hype, always an illusion. It just happened to have a monopoly on such an experience for 40-odd years.

I love nostalgia like any child of the eighties should. But I'll not yearn for the d days of the Cup. It wasn't that good at all.

[Rufus T Firefly]

I can tell you United and their supporters were glad to win this trophy last season. The withdrawal in 2000 was instructed by FIFA/FA and is overstated as a reason for the demise of the competition.

Yes, fair enough. Maybe more a visible sign as to how the competition had fallen in status.

The "magic" was always hype, always an illusion. It just happened to have a monopoly on such an experience for 40-odd years. I love nostalgia like any child of the eighties should. But I'll not yearn for the d days of the Cup. It wasn't that good at all.

I'd be the first to say how much I cringe nowadays at the phrase 'the magic of the cup'. There was a huge amount made of Plymouth's draw yesterday against a Liverpool second team who were largely disinterested.

We'll agree to disagree though on your point above - for me the FA Cup was once a great competition, and the magic was there as evidenced by the exploits of Ronnie Radford, Bobby Stokes, Jim Montgomery, the 'Leatherhead Lip' and Clive Walker's tour-de-force against the great Liverpool team of the late seventies at Stamford Bridge. There are many others. 

[Billys Boots]

I like the 3rd round of the Cup MOTD and always have - reflecting on why I do so leads me to thinking that it was really a sort of round-up of where the lower leagues were at in terms of competitiveness.  This is probably agreeing with what Rufus, wobbler, J70 and Seanie are saying; we're now barraged with football to the extent that we'd never seriously consider looking at League-1, League-2 or LOI matches on the telly, much less getting off our arses to go see local league football (in the flesh), which is sad.  It's no wonder, I suppose, that LOI is at such a low ebb. 

[J70]

I used to go watch Finn Harps quite a bit in the late 90s/early 2000s, and part of the problem was the simple quality of the football. Harps were going well for a few of those years, competitive in the LOI premier division, and leaving an FAI Cup behind them when they'd twice had it won against Bray. They'd relatively good crowds and the football was decent, with wins over the big Dublin clubs (sadly never Derry City! ) occurring regularly and feeding the interest. But forward a few seasons and the financial issues that hit them, they lost players, dropped down to and eventually got stuck in the first division, and the quality of the football declined dramatically. People stopped coming, the football was terrible and the place was lifeless. You have to have a decent product to draw people in, especially with competition from tv and a (recently) very good senior county team across the street to spend money on.

[BennyCake]

I like the 3rd round of the Cup MOTD and always have - reflecting on why I do so leads me to thinking that it was really a sort of round-up of where the lower leagues were at in terms of competitiveness.  This is probably agreeing with what Rufus, wobbler, J70 and Seanie are saying; we're now barraged with football to the extent that we'd never seriously consider looking at League-1, League-2 or LOI matches on the telly, much less getting off our arses to go see local league football (in the flesh), which is sad.  It's no wonder, I suppose, that LOI is at such a low ebb.

People are bombarded with football these days. I can't even be arsed watching my own team most of the time, and I'm paying for it. My team scores or wins, and it barely registered anymore. I couldn't care less if I tried. Football is unrecognisable to even around the start of the PL. Unrecognisable, unpronounceable players from far flung places earning vast sums. No wonder the Irish and British teams struggle internationally.

[T Fearon]

Also wonder if the foreign managers in charge at top EPL clubs don't really have a high regard for the cup.Domestic Cup competitions where never treated too seriously on the continent at any stage.

[J70]

I like the 3rd round of the Cup MOTD and always have - reflecting on why I do so leads me to thinking that it was really a sort of round-up of where the lower leagues were at in terms of competitiveness.  This is probably agreeing with what Rufus, wobbler, J70 and Seanie are saying; we're now barraged with football to the extent that we'd never seriously consider looking at League-1, League-2 or LOI matches on the telly, much less getting off our arses to go see local league football (in the flesh), which is sad.  It's no wonder, I suppose, that LOI is at such a low ebb.

People are bombarded with football these days. I can't even be arsed watching my own team most of the time, and I'm paying for it. My team scores or wins, and it barely registered anymore. I couldn't care less if I tried. Football is unrecognisable to even around the start of the PL. Unrecognisable, unpronounceable players from far flung places earning vast sums. No wonder the Irish and British teams struggle internationally.

Surely the widening of the player base is raising the standard of the European leagues though?

The English league used to pretty much only feature the best of the British Isles, with the odd European player here and there. Arnold Muhren and Frans Thissjen were notable for being foreigners 35 years ago, and they only crossed from Holland! Ardiles and Villa very highly exotic recruits for Spurs. But they were not the norm. Even Liverpool, with Grobbelaar and Johnston well established foreign players (albeit from former colonies), still went domestic when they recruited their star team in the late 80s. Bergkampf and Klinsmann really started the flood into the Premier League in the mid-90s (Cantona was already there, but he came into the league as a last chance outcast).

So has the standard of British Isle player dropped in the last 20 years, or has the standard of the league into which they're trying to break risen?

(Not saying its a simple question BTW!)

[Ball Hopper]

Fourth Round Draw Games 27-30 January:

Tottenham v Wycombe
Derby v Leicester

Oxford v Newcastle or Birmingham
Sutton or AFC Wimbledon v Leeds

Plymouth or Liverpool v Wolves
Southampton or Norwich v Arsenal

Lincoln or Ipswich v Brighton
Chelsea v Brentford

Manchester United v Wigan
Millwall v Watford

Rochdale v Huddersfield
Burnley or Sunderland v Fleetwood or Bristol City

Blackburn v Barnsley or Blackpool
Fulham v Hull

Middlesbrough v Accrington Stanley
Crystal Palace or Bolton v Manchester City


Look pretty boring to be honest.

[mrdeeds]

Can't beat a bit of Accrington Stanley in the cup.

[laoislad]

Who are they?