January 5 2010

Action

The Owls are put out but the Wolves are waiting. Nice one for Crystal Palace but Jamesey looks at the decline of the FA Cup.

Back in the days of post-war austerity the whole nation thrilled to the prospect of the FA Cup, giant-killing, Pickles the dog, and all the rest of that malarkey. I seem to remember they even made a film comedy about the whole business.

Even in my adopted area of south-west London, as late as 1975 the local populace shivered in expectation when Fulham reached the final to play West Ham. Streets were decked out in the black and white of Fulham and hopes were high. These days, of course, they all "support" Chelsea!

For my first ever visit to Wembley I was an honorary Fulham supporter as my next door neighbour had got me a ticket. We were, of course, duly dispatched by the Hammers and the silverware went to East London not, I am afraid, to the western part.

There have been massive changes in sport and our way of life since those days and the FA Cup is very much a poor relation of European football. Even the League Cup has grown in status in recent years, largely because it offers another gate to the Euro cash.

The massive growth of alternative sports and the temptation of watching games in the pub or at in the living room have all eroded the number of paying spectators and a look at the attendance figures, at least in the early stages of the FA Cup, show how much public interest has declined.

Having said all that, some of my own golden memories are, of course, of 1990 when I made my only two other FA Cup-related visits to Wembley. I hardly need go into what happened then on a CPFC supporters' website.

It was, nevertheless, gratifying to see us visit Hillsborough (Jan 2) and beat Sheffield Wednesday 1-2 in the Third Round.

I was astonished to be the only person watching Sunday's second televised game, West Ham v Arsenal, in my Wandsworth local. Surely, even after the Christmas and New Year bacchanalia, an attractive looking match like that might have pulled in a few neutrals?

Freddie Sears was back in harness for the Hammers and when he came on during the game looked much the same as he had done during his loan period with us - busy, skilful and ineffective.

Any way, the point of the afternoon for this viewer was, of course, the draw for the fourth round and one could only hope for a decent draw, one of the big boys at home, or even away to make some cash for our struggling chairman.

One of the main big boys, Manchester United, had already been dismissed by Leeds Utd earlier in the day so that was not a possibility.

As we now know, we drew Wolves away, to be played during the weekend of Jan 23-24. So after one away draw oop north, we get another one, not so far oop north.

But for the moment, let's concentrate on next weekend's visit of Bristol City which seem to have become rather a needle match after events in recent seasons.

Email Jamesey with your comments to jevans3704@aol.com

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