- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
The most annoying aspect of the FA Cup final was not the empty seats or constant references to Budweiser, it was the fact that at least some of us forgot it no longer kicks off at midnight.
You’d think I’d have learned after doing the same thing last year.
There I was with my glass of scotch, peanut bowl filled to the brim and the cat purring expectantly on the lounge, only to discover I was at least two hours early.
Generally I don’t enjoy watching the interminable build-up to big matches – ESPN seemed to start theirs around seventeen hours before kick-off – so you can imagine my disappointment when I flicked on SBS at five-to-twelve only to discover they were screening a typically gritty Euro drama.
It quickly dawned on me the kick-off time for the big clash had been moved back a couple of years ago from 3pm to 5.15pm English time, meaning I was faced with the dilemma of catching some shut-eye or ploughing on through until the game started.
I chose the latter, of course, flicking between Rafa Nadal making short work of compatriot Pablo Andujar in the Madrid Open and a replay of a surprisingly entertaining Challenge Cup clash between Huddersfield and reigning English Super League champions Leeds Rhinos.
That Huddersfield attracted their largest attendance of the season for a cup match rather than a league fixture says much about the way the English venerate knock-out competitions, however those sorts of traditions are dying a slow death.
One such tradition to have tumbled by the wayside is obviously the 3pm kick-off, and its disappearance from FA Cup final day means the traditional Australian FA Cup party is now threatened with extinction – at least on the east coast.
It seems another tradition to have long since disappeared since the construction of the ‘New Wembley’ is fans actually filling every seat.
Notwithstanding that Wigan remains a rugby league town, the real issue at Wembley is not an absence of travelling supporters but the fact that corporate ticket holders regularly fail to turn up.
I once read an interesting article about the rebuilt Yankee Stadium in New York, which explained that the Yankees deliberately situated their premium seats directly behind home plate – reasoning that the closest seats to the action should command the highest price.
Problem is, no one can afford them, leading to the comical situation of Yankees games being broadcast against a backdrop of empty seats.
The same thing happens on the halfway line at Wembley and it’s a sign of the sickness which pervades the modern game.
No longer a working class pursuit, football has been taken away from supporters and placed squarely in the hands of corporations.
Anyway, while Australia’s doyen of football commentators Simon Hill was in the crowd, SBS at least had the redoubtable Martin Tyler on the microphone.
He called the game as impeccably as always and one of the most enjoyable features of the match, for neutral fans at least, was watching Wigan’s speedy winger Callum McManaman terrorise Manchester City’s expensively-assembled defence.
In this day and age of tiki-taka and false nines, it was refreshing to see a footballer revert to the days of yore and simply run directly at defenders.
Poor old Gaël Clichy – surely one of the most overrated players to have ever planted a foot in English football – must have thought he was in some sort of Kafka-esque nightmare, as McManaman repeatedly made him look like the footballing equivalent of a garden gnome.
It was fitting that McManaman played a key role in the winning goal and there was something so predictable about the way substitute Ben Watson out-jumped a static City defence to head home.
So the underdogs owned by a multi-millionaire beat the favourites owned by a multi-billionaire, and we were then swiftly reminded that Wigan’s real goal is to avoid relegation.
It was the FA Cup final alright – just not how it used to be.