Caoimhin O’Muraile ⚽ I have been watching football for as long as I can remember and the Football Association Challenge Cup (FA Cup) was once the greatest knockout competition in the world. 

It was an event which attracted huge crowds and certain tensions, not present in the league games which were marathons not sprints. As a Manchester United fan the FA Cup always had an attraction for me: the away ties when we would take massive legions of travelling supporters and the replays, equally as important to get to, we would mass in the hosts town or city. The Red Army days could not be more epitomised than in the FA Cup. We took huge support away in the league but the cup ties away meant that a greater allocation of tickets were given often meaning we could go in the full knowledge we would get into the game, legally. No rushing turnstiles or jibbing in, not always having to buy tickets off touts (though as a last resort it was still an option) and in the full expectancy we were certainly Wembley bound that year.

The FA Cup had a certain magic attached, not least because the winner secured a place in the once prestigious European Cup Winners Cup, then Europe’s second competition. Going to Wembley back in 1979 against Arsenal I made a huge cardboard Top Hat about two feet tall, painted red and white with thin black lines, Man Utd’s colours, and a one-foot silver foil FA Cup cut-out pasted to the front. My face, as were all of us, was donned with red, white and black war paint as was customary for football fans in those days and a great weekend was in store. Unfortunately, we lost to a late 89th minute Alan Sunderland goal for the Gunners which cancelled out Sammy McIlroy’s 88th minute equaliser. What a bastard - we were still celebrating the equaliser when Sunderland scored the winner. We only knew they had scored because the Arsenal end (the rest of the stadium was United) were cheering. Tears and emotion can only begin to sum up the feeling among the 60,000+ United supporters. In those days, no matter who was playing at Wembley if Manchester United were there, we always somehow managed to outnumber the other team’s fans, including those of Liverpool, marginally, in 1977 I am reliably informed.

Irrespective of who was playing in the final the day itself, Cup Final Day was one of the highlights of the year. For as far back as I can remember we always had the television – black and white during the sixties and early seventies – on from about 10 am for the coverage of the game and the build-up. I can remember Charlie George's goal for Arsenal back in 1971 against Bill Shankly’s Liverpool, a long range shot in extra time giving the Gunners their first double of league and FA Cup. 

Then there was Sunderland’s emphatic conquest of Don Revie's Leeds United in 1973, against all the odds. Bob Stokoe’s side were given no chance, but this was the FA Cup. Ian Porterfield scored the only goal, but the Sunderland keeper, Jimmy Montgomery, was the real hero keeping out Leeds 90 mile an hour hot shot man, Peter Lorimer. 

The 1974 Final saw Bill Shankly retire from football management as Liverpool humbled Newcastle 3-0, a fitting end to Bill Shankly’s illustrious career, though as a Man Utd fan I was routing for Newcastle. 

In 1975 it was the turn of West Ham United, a club with a good cup fighting tradition during the sixties, to beat Fulham. Tommy Trinder a well-known comedian and Fulham fan and director was not laughing that day. Fulham Manager, Alec Stock had done wonders getting Fulham to the final and the 2-0 defeat to West Ham was no disgrace.

On to 1976, and our turn to play Southampton on the hallowed turf of Wembley. Manchester United - like Leeds United three years previous had been to beat Sunderland - were odds on to hammer Laurie McMenemy’s Southampton. We were disappointed as Bobby Stokes, off side in my view, cut through to hit the ball past Alex Stepney. I was not yet confident enough to jib into Wembley, only fifteen, so had to watch the match on television with cans of long-life beer. A distant relative of United Manger, Tommy Docherty, was at our house for the game, bottle of scotch to go with it. After the hammer blow of a result, I and my dad needed it. Even my mam a non-drinker as a rule, had a glass to console herself. Then, to add insult to injury, a load of schoolmates, Liverpool and Leeds fans, came round to gloat the shower of bastards. 

In 1977 I smashed my motorbike up, along with myself, and could not get to Manchester United’s destruction of Liverpool in the FA Cup Final. We beat Liverpool 2-1 goals from Stuart Pearson and Jimmy Greenhoff, with Jimmy Case scoring for them, stopping the Scousers winning the League, FA Cup and European Cup treble (ironically it would be United 22 years later who would become the first English side to achieve this feat). Despite the fact I was in a body of plaster the day was magical, no other word can describe it, beer by the gallon flowed as our party spilled out into the street! 

The decade was finished off with Ipswich Town defeating Arsenal in 1978 1-0, in 1979, as we have discussed we narrowly lost to a poxy Gunners goal, and West Ham finished the decade off lifting the FA Cup in 1980 ironically beating Arsenal 1-0. Arsenal were in the final in 1978, 1979 and 1980.

We moved into the eighties and although fashions on the terraces had changed and we were, in terrace terms, getting older the magic of the FA Cup was still prevalent. The all-day Saturday excitement was what made it a special day in May. In 1983 Manchester United played Brighton and Hove Albion in the final. I remember standing outside Old Trafford with thousands of others in the hope of snatching one of the remaining tickets. It snowed like hell that night in late April, cold for the time of year, and I stood from 10.30 the previous night until 9am when the ticket office opened. I was near the front of the queue and leaving my spot was not an option. If anybody wanted a piss, they’d do it on the spot. As most of us had been in the pub urinating was a regular occurrence. I was successful in my quest and retired with others to the pub, the holy grail (ticket) in my possession, safe in my wallet. 

By the time the ticket office opened the queue went around the ground almost twice, many were to be disappointed. The game itself was frightening from our point of view as Brighton took us to a replay, the score after extra time 2-2 Frank Stapleton and Ray Wilkins scoring for United. We got wind some tickets were on sale at Wembley the following morning, Sunday, so we headed up to investigate. The rumour was right, and our mob all secured tickets for the following Thursday evening replay. No point heading back north, so many United fans stayed down, sleeping rough, for the game. I jibbed the train late on Sunday night going to work the following day to inform my employer I wanted Thursday and Friday off for the match. In the replay we won 4-0 Brian Robson scored twice, Norman Whiteside once and Arnold Muhren once, as the stadium, three quarters full of Man Utd fans rang-out to the strains of; “Stevie Foster, Stevie Foster what a difference you have made” in reference to the loser’s substitution - they brought on supposed game changer, Steve Foster. Then there was the magical 1985 final, we beat Everton 1-0 with a classic Norman Whiteside goal. Kevin Moran was sent off in that game for United, making him the first player to be discharged by the ref in a cup final, I think.

In 1990 Manchester United played Crystal Palace and this was the first final to be played at Wembley as an all-seater stadium. True, the magic was still there but diluted somewhat by these moronic plastic buckets where terracing once prevailed. I can remember us meeting at the Black Lion pub, Kilburn High Road for a good pre-match session, donning our war paint (though age was now telling on our generation) and heading off to the game. Another replay was to be the order of the day with Man Utd coming out eventual winners 1-0 with a goal from defender Lee Martin.

Forward to 1994 and we played Chelsea. Again the atmosphere was good by today’s standards but well diluted on those days of the seventies and eighties. We trounced Chelsea 4-0, Eric Cantona scoring two penalties, Mark Hughes and Brian McClair scoring the other brace, though in the first half they had their chances but failed to convert. 

My last final was United v Everton in 1995, we came second that day 1-0, their revenge for 1985 perhaps. The all-seated stadium had taken its toll on the atmosphere, plus jibbing in to the ground was no longer a viable option. The entire culture was changing.

FA Cup ties in those days were, as I have said, special. The games were played usually on a Saturday, 3pm kick off, and in the event of a draw a replay would be played, often, though not exclusively, on a Tuesday or Wednesday night at the initial away side's ground. In 1976 Man Utd drew at Old Trafford with Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Quarter Final, and won in the reply at Molineux on the following Tuesday 3-2, Stuart Pearson, Brian Greenhoff and Sammy McIlroy scoring for United, two nil down, three two up, now we’re gonna win the cup. We took over 25,000+ to that game, swamping Molineux’s South Bank terrace. 

Another memorable epic encounter in the FA Cup was the fifth-round tie between Leeds United and Ipswich Town in 1975. The teams met four times before the game was decided. The first, at Portman Road, Ipswich, ended 0-0, the second game, replay, at Elland Road Leeds, finished 1-1 so it was off to a neutral venue. Filbert Street, home then of Leicester City FC, was chosen with the first game ending in a 0-0 draw. All to play for again at the same venue, Filbert Street, this time Ipswich Town came out 3-2 victors. An epic clash between two good sides. None of that excitement today!! Ipswich lost to eventual winners West Ham in the semi-final.

There are those who say, and these are people who know fuck all about football fans, that all the travelling was too much expense for fans in the days of replays. This is crap. As a former traveling fan myself we couldn’t care less about travelling or the expense or, come to it, our jobs, we’d always get there come what may. These sanctimonious wankers are using the travelling and concern for fans' pockets to hide their real interest, that is getting the not too profitable and inconvenient FA Cup out of the way in one game thus allowing for an ever-profitable expanding European competition. If they were so concerned with our pockets, why did they continuously increase the price of entry? Why, on the backs of 96 murdered (in the opinion of many) Liverpool fans did they demand all seater stadia, costing many times the price to go to a game? They were not concerned about the fans having to travel, they couldn’t care less about the fans, their only interest was and is profit, and more profit. They have devalued the FA Cup to a relic of its former self, it no longer carries a Cup Winners Cup place as that competition is no more, a victim to the incessant greed of the money men! This was to make way for the misleadingly titled “UEFA Champions League” or the European Cup expanded to us old timers. The winners of the FA Cup, and other countries equivalent, now gain entry into something called the “Europa League” (formerly the Fairs Cup till 1971 then the UEFA Cup until the reorganisation of European football, not for the better), a league for the fifth and sixth placed league sides plus the FA Cup winners. It is a long drawn out bore until the knockout stages and is there to maximise the number of teams playing European football, along with increasing profits.

As a Manchester United fan I am not complaining about us getting knocked out in the fourth round by Middlesbrough, disappointing as it was. It is the number of games involved, just the one game. Middlesbrough’s equaliser may well have come from a hand ball, the referee Anthony Taylor allowed it, bastard: maybe, but that’s football or it always was, they then brought in the VAR which upheld Taylor’s decision. VAR, an unnecessary piece of technology which is not required or wanted is bastardising the game. The fact is the game, and many like it, should have been replayed at the Riverside ground home to Middlesbrough. That is how it always was until these financial whiz-kids restructured everything, insisting the game must be decided in one game. That is not and never will be the FA Cup!

Gone are the happy days of the FA Cup final being an annual event, all day the Saturday of the final. The stocking up of beer and piles of sandwiches which accompanied many a family’s entertainment in the month of May. Even as kids in the sixties and early seventies there was always bottles of lemonade and sambos, giving way to beer later on in the decade, great days perhaps tragically never to be repeated. I often feel sorry for the young fans of today, they missed out on a culture which had to be experienced to appreciate. The FA Cup has been insulted and degraded to the point where many so-called top flight clubs field weakened teams in the rounds prior to the semi-finals and final. The League Cup was always the competition for experimenting with new and young players, today the grand old FA Cup is used by some to experiment, thus devaluing the prestigious FA Cup. Manchester United are included I am ashamed to say in this destruction of the once finest knockout competition in the world, they even boycotted the competition to play in the European Super Cup one year which only helped the money men in their destructive campaign against anything remotely associated with traditional football.

Crowds once flocked to FA Cup ties filling grounds to the rafters. Today crowds at FA Cup games do not match those of league games. Many young fans will not remember the proper FA Cup and this version will be all they have ever known. They are not to blame for this, being born too late is not a crime, but the older fans who can remember should have more to say. The fact is many of these new football fans are not proper supporters at all. I remember talking to a Man City fan, a man in his forties, so, well old enough to remember the Blues playing at Maine Road. On enquiring into his record as a City fan I discovered he had never been to Maine Road, he had heard of it. Pathetic, he was not a proper Blue, he was one of the new generation imposters. If he had been a proper Blue, he would have baited me, being a Red, and the reply from myself would have been acute and swift. He was more interested in the money the owners had put in, not even a mention of football! 

This chap is not alone in the modern game. What we have today are those fans who are too young to remember football as a working-class game, let alone swaying on the terraces. This cannot be helped, then we have the older fans, my generation and older, who do not like the changes, certainly the gentrification of the game and supporters, but it is better than no football at all. These I can understand, then we have the new age football fan, those who think the sun shines out of the money men’s arses, men like Man City owner Sheik Mansour of the United Arab Emirates where human rights do not exist, Fenway Sports Group, owners of Liverpool and Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea the list is endless. These and men like them are responsible for the hybrid game we witness today. Their only interest is money, they are not interested in supporters, in fact it took fans rebellions to stop these parasites entering a European Super League. At Old Trafford United fans broke into the ground before a game against Liverpool to force the Glazers to even recognise we exist at Man Utd. The protest was also part of the anti-Super League momentum, in fact the most effective and radical. These are the people who have, collectively with their big business allies, reduced the FA Cup from the prestigious knockout competition it was for over one hundred years, to the Fuck All Cup of today.

Today, on television, well paid commentators try, or pretend to try, to convince viewers that the magic of the FA Cup is still there. A magic which has artificially been removed by the parasitical money- orientated people who have hijacked and destroyed the game, and certainly this competition. The puppets of the FA make up dafter and dafter rules which make the game impossible to referee, certainly with the naked eye, at the bequest no doubt behind the scenes, of these know nowt about football business tycoons.

Finally, there is little wonder a group of radical Manchester United fans, pissed off at the corrupt and legally questionable takeover by the Glazers at Old Trafford in 2005, along with the price increases and gentrification of the game formed our own Man Utd. FC United of Manchester was born out of the ashes of what was once called Association Football back in 2005, a rebellion against the Glazers and price hikes and much more. Those great days can, and I hope will be brought back, but it will take a massive uprising among the footballing fraternity and probably society as a whole as money, money, money based on profits for the few becomes the increasingly powerful God in our lives!

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent 
Socialist Republican and Marxist

From The Prestigious FA Cup – To Fuck All Cup

Caoimhin O’Muraile ⚽ I have been watching football for as long as I can remember and the Football Association Challenge Cup (FA Cup) was once the greatest knockout competition in the world. 

It was an event which attracted huge crowds and certain tensions, not present in the league games which were marathons not sprints. As a Manchester United fan the FA Cup always had an attraction for me: the away ties when we would take massive legions of travelling supporters and the replays, equally as important to get to, we would mass in the hosts town or city. The Red Army days could not be more epitomised than in the FA Cup. We took huge support away in the league but the cup ties away meant that a greater allocation of tickets were given often meaning we could go in the full knowledge we would get into the game, legally. No rushing turnstiles or jibbing in, not always having to buy tickets off touts (though as a last resort it was still an option) and in the full expectancy we were certainly Wembley bound that year.

The FA Cup had a certain magic attached, not least because the winner secured a place in the once prestigious European Cup Winners Cup, then Europe’s second competition. Going to Wembley back in 1979 against Arsenal I made a huge cardboard Top Hat about two feet tall, painted red and white with thin black lines, Man Utd’s colours, and a one-foot silver foil FA Cup cut-out pasted to the front. My face, as were all of us, was donned with red, white and black war paint as was customary for football fans in those days and a great weekend was in store. Unfortunately, we lost to a late 89th minute Alan Sunderland goal for the Gunners which cancelled out Sammy McIlroy’s 88th minute equaliser. What a bastard - we were still celebrating the equaliser when Sunderland scored the winner. We only knew they had scored because the Arsenal end (the rest of the stadium was United) were cheering. Tears and emotion can only begin to sum up the feeling among the 60,000+ United supporters. In those days, no matter who was playing at Wembley if Manchester United were there, we always somehow managed to outnumber the other team’s fans, including those of Liverpool, marginally, in 1977 I am reliably informed.

Irrespective of who was playing in the final the day itself, Cup Final Day was one of the highlights of the year. For as far back as I can remember we always had the television – black and white during the sixties and early seventies – on from about 10 am for the coverage of the game and the build-up. I can remember Charlie George's goal for Arsenal back in 1971 against Bill Shankly’s Liverpool, a long range shot in extra time giving the Gunners their first double of league and FA Cup. 

Then there was Sunderland’s emphatic conquest of Don Revie's Leeds United in 1973, against all the odds. Bob Stokoe’s side were given no chance, but this was the FA Cup. Ian Porterfield scored the only goal, but the Sunderland keeper, Jimmy Montgomery, was the real hero keeping out Leeds 90 mile an hour hot shot man, Peter Lorimer. 

The 1974 Final saw Bill Shankly retire from football management as Liverpool humbled Newcastle 3-0, a fitting end to Bill Shankly’s illustrious career, though as a Man Utd fan I was routing for Newcastle. 

In 1975 it was the turn of West Ham United, a club with a good cup fighting tradition during the sixties, to beat Fulham. Tommy Trinder a well-known comedian and Fulham fan and director was not laughing that day. Fulham Manager, Alec Stock had done wonders getting Fulham to the final and the 2-0 defeat to West Ham was no disgrace.

On to 1976, and our turn to play Southampton on the hallowed turf of Wembley. Manchester United - like Leeds United three years previous had been to beat Sunderland - were odds on to hammer Laurie McMenemy’s Southampton. We were disappointed as Bobby Stokes, off side in my view, cut through to hit the ball past Alex Stepney. I was not yet confident enough to jib into Wembley, only fifteen, so had to watch the match on television with cans of long-life beer. A distant relative of United Manger, Tommy Docherty, was at our house for the game, bottle of scotch to go with it. After the hammer blow of a result, I and my dad needed it. Even my mam a non-drinker as a rule, had a glass to console herself. Then, to add insult to injury, a load of schoolmates, Liverpool and Leeds fans, came round to gloat the shower of bastards. 

In 1977 I smashed my motorbike up, along with myself, and could not get to Manchester United’s destruction of Liverpool in the FA Cup Final. We beat Liverpool 2-1 goals from Stuart Pearson and Jimmy Greenhoff, with Jimmy Case scoring for them, stopping the Scousers winning the League, FA Cup and European Cup treble (ironically it would be United 22 years later who would become the first English side to achieve this feat). Despite the fact I was in a body of plaster the day was magical, no other word can describe it, beer by the gallon flowed as our party spilled out into the street! 

The decade was finished off with Ipswich Town defeating Arsenal in 1978 1-0, in 1979, as we have discussed we narrowly lost to a poxy Gunners goal, and West Ham finished the decade off lifting the FA Cup in 1980 ironically beating Arsenal 1-0. Arsenal were in the final in 1978, 1979 and 1980.

We moved into the eighties and although fashions on the terraces had changed and we were, in terrace terms, getting older the magic of the FA Cup was still prevalent. The all-day Saturday excitement was what made it a special day in May. In 1983 Manchester United played Brighton and Hove Albion in the final. I remember standing outside Old Trafford with thousands of others in the hope of snatching one of the remaining tickets. It snowed like hell that night in late April, cold for the time of year, and I stood from 10.30 the previous night until 9am when the ticket office opened. I was near the front of the queue and leaving my spot was not an option. If anybody wanted a piss, they’d do it on the spot. As most of us had been in the pub urinating was a regular occurrence. I was successful in my quest and retired with others to the pub, the holy grail (ticket) in my possession, safe in my wallet. 

By the time the ticket office opened the queue went around the ground almost twice, many were to be disappointed. The game itself was frightening from our point of view as Brighton took us to a replay, the score after extra time 2-2 Frank Stapleton and Ray Wilkins scoring for United. We got wind some tickets were on sale at Wembley the following morning, Sunday, so we headed up to investigate. The rumour was right, and our mob all secured tickets for the following Thursday evening replay. No point heading back north, so many United fans stayed down, sleeping rough, for the game. I jibbed the train late on Sunday night going to work the following day to inform my employer I wanted Thursday and Friday off for the match. In the replay we won 4-0 Brian Robson scored twice, Norman Whiteside once and Arnold Muhren once, as the stadium, three quarters full of Man Utd fans rang-out to the strains of; “Stevie Foster, Stevie Foster what a difference you have made” in reference to the loser’s substitution - they brought on supposed game changer, Steve Foster. Then there was the magical 1985 final, we beat Everton 1-0 with a classic Norman Whiteside goal. Kevin Moran was sent off in that game for United, making him the first player to be discharged by the ref in a cup final, I think.

In 1990 Manchester United played Crystal Palace and this was the first final to be played at Wembley as an all-seater stadium. True, the magic was still there but diluted somewhat by these moronic plastic buckets where terracing once prevailed. I can remember us meeting at the Black Lion pub, Kilburn High Road for a good pre-match session, donning our war paint (though age was now telling on our generation) and heading off to the game. Another replay was to be the order of the day with Man Utd coming out eventual winners 1-0 with a goal from defender Lee Martin.

Forward to 1994 and we played Chelsea. Again the atmosphere was good by today’s standards but well diluted on those days of the seventies and eighties. We trounced Chelsea 4-0, Eric Cantona scoring two penalties, Mark Hughes and Brian McClair scoring the other brace, though in the first half they had their chances but failed to convert. 

My last final was United v Everton in 1995, we came second that day 1-0, their revenge for 1985 perhaps. The all-seated stadium had taken its toll on the atmosphere, plus jibbing in to the ground was no longer a viable option. The entire culture was changing.

FA Cup ties in those days were, as I have said, special. The games were played usually on a Saturday, 3pm kick off, and in the event of a draw a replay would be played, often, though not exclusively, on a Tuesday or Wednesday night at the initial away side's ground. In 1976 Man Utd drew at Old Trafford with Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Quarter Final, and won in the reply at Molineux on the following Tuesday 3-2, Stuart Pearson, Brian Greenhoff and Sammy McIlroy scoring for United, two nil down, three two up, now we’re gonna win the cup. We took over 25,000+ to that game, swamping Molineux’s South Bank terrace. 

Another memorable epic encounter in the FA Cup was the fifth-round tie between Leeds United and Ipswich Town in 1975. The teams met four times before the game was decided. The first, at Portman Road, Ipswich, ended 0-0, the second game, replay, at Elland Road Leeds, finished 1-1 so it was off to a neutral venue. Filbert Street, home then of Leicester City FC, was chosen with the first game ending in a 0-0 draw. All to play for again at the same venue, Filbert Street, this time Ipswich Town came out 3-2 victors. An epic clash between two good sides. None of that excitement today!! Ipswich lost to eventual winners West Ham in the semi-final.

There are those who say, and these are people who know fuck all about football fans, that all the travelling was too much expense for fans in the days of replays. This is crap. As a former traveling fan myself we couldn’t care less about travelling or the expense or, come to it, our jobs, we’d always get there come what may. These sanctimonious wankers are using the travelling and concern for fans' pockets to hide their real interest, that is getting the not too profitable and inconvenient FA Cup out of the way in one game thus allowing for an ever-profitable expanding European competition. If they were so concerned with our pockets, why did they continuously increase the price of entry? Why, on the backs of 96 murdered (in the opinion of many) Liverpool fans did they demand all seater stadia, costing many times the price to go to a game? They were not concerned about the fans having to travel, they couldn’t care less about the fans, their only interest was and is profit, and more profit. They have devalued the FA Cup to a relic of its former self, it no longer carries a Cup Winners Cup place as that competition is no more, a victim to the incessant greed of the money men! This was to make way for the misleadingly titled “UEFA Champions League” or the European Cup expanded to us old timers. The winners of the FA Cup, and other countries equivalent, now gain entry into something called the “Europa League” (formerly the Fairs Cup till 1971 then the UEFA Cup until the reorganisation of European football, not for the better), a league for the fifth and sixth placed league sides plus the FA Cup winners. It is a long drawn out bore until the knockout stages and is there to maximise the number of teams playing European football, along with increasing profits.

As a Manchester United fan I am not complaining about us getting knocked out in the fourth round by Middlesbrough, disappointing as it was. It is the number of games involved, just the one game. Middlesbrough’s equaliser may well have come from a hand ball, the referee Anthony Taylor allowed it, bastard: maybe, but that’s football or it always was, they then brought in the VAR which upheld Taylor’s decision. VAR, an unnecessary piece of technology which is not required or wanted is bastardising the game. The fact is the game, and many like it, should have been replayed at the Riverside ground home to Middlesbrough. That is how it always was until these financial whiz-kids restructured everything, insisting the game must be decided in one game. That is not and never will be the FA Cup!

Gone are the happy days of the FA Cup final being an annual event, all day the Saturday of the final. The stocking up of beer and piles of sandwiches which accompanied many a family’s entertainment in the month of May. Even as kids in the sixties and early seventies there was always bottles of lemonade and sambos, giving way to beer later on in the decade, great days perhaps tragically never to be repeated. I often feel sorry for the young fans of today, they missed out on a culture which had to be experienced to appreciate. The FA Cup has been insulted and degraded to the point where many so-called top flight clubs field weakened teams in the rounds prior to the semi-finals and final. The League Cup was always the competition for experimenting with new and young players, today the grand old FA Cup is used by some to experiment, thus devaluing the prestigious FA Cup. Manchester United are included I am ashamed to say in this destruction of the once finest knockout competition in the world, they even boycotted the competition to play in the European Super Cup one year which only helped the money men in their destructive campaign against anything remotely associated with traditional football.

Crowds once flocked to FA Cup ties filling grounds to the rafters. Today crowds at FA Cup games do not match those of league games. Many young fans will not remember the proper FA Cup and this version will be all they have ever known. They are not to blame for this, being born too late is not a crime, but the older fans who can remember should have more to say. The fact is many of these new football fans are not proper supporters at all. I remember talking to a Man City fan, a man in his forties, so, well old enough to remember the Blues playing at Maine Road. On enquiring into his record as a City fan I discovered he had never been to Maine Road, he had heard of it. Pathetic, he was not a proper Blue, he was one of the new generation imposters. If he had been a proper Blue, he would have baited me, being a Red, and the reply from myself would have been acute and swift. He was more interested in the money the owners had put in, not even a mention of football! 

This chap is not alone in the modern game. What we have today are those fans who are too young to remember football as a working-class game, let alone swaying on the terraces. This cannot be helped, then we have the older fans, my generation and older, who do not like the changes, certainly the gentrification of the game and supporters, but it is better than no football at all. These I can understand, then we have the new age football fan, those who think the sun shines out of the money men’s arses, men like Man City owner Sheik Mansour of the United Arab Emirates where human rights do not exist, Fenway Sports Group, owners of Liverpool and Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea the list is endless. These and men like them are responsible for the hybrid game we witness today. Their only interest is money, they are not interested in supporters, in fact it took fans rebellions to stop these parasites entering a European Super League. At Old Trafford United fans broke into the ground before a game against Liverpool to force the Glazers to even recognise we exist at Man Utd. The protest was also part of the anti-Super League momentum, in fact the most effective and radical. These are the people who have, collectively with their big business allies, reduced the FA Cup from the prestigious knockout competition it was for over one hundred years, to the Fuck All Cup of today.

Today, on television, well paid commentators try, or pretend to try, to convince viewers that the magic of the FA Cup is still there. A magic which has artificially been removed by the parasitical money- orientated people who have hijacked and destroyed the game, and certainly this competition. The puppets of the FA make up dafter and dafter rules which make the game impossible to referee, certainly with the naked eye, at the bequest no doubt behind the scenes, of these know nowt about football business tycoons.

Finally, there is little wonder a group of radical Manchester United fans, pissed off at the corrupt and legally questionable takeover by the Glazers at Old Trafford in 2005, along with the price increases and gentrification of the game formed our own Man Utd. FC United of Manchester was born out of the ashes of what was once called Association Football back in 2005, a rebellion against the Glazers and price hikes and much more. Those great days can, and I hope will be brought back, but it will take a massive uprising among the footballing fraternity and probably society as a whole as money, money, money based on profits for the few becomes the increasingly powerful God in our lives!

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent 
Socialist Republican and Marxist

12 comments:

  1. I know the result of every Cup final from 1973 - 2006. After that, haven't a clue ; one yr morphs into the next # Old age # Mickey 🐭 ☕

    ReplyDelete
  2. I know the feeling Ronan, I missed out the Chelsea Leeds game, replayed at Old Trafford 1970. Chelsea won the replay 3-2 if memory serves me.

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Caoimhin

      It was 2-1 to Chelsea in a warfest in which had David Elleray been refereeing six players from each side would have been sent off. Ah, those really were the days. Leeds fans will never forget or forgive Chopper Harris taking out Eddie Gray at the start of the replay.

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  3. While I can appreciate your lament of a bygone era, let's not forget it was one full of rioting, substandard stadiums and play that was agricultural bordering on assault at times.

    The skill levels of modern players, their fitness and diet, and the huge amounts of background analysis that goes into the modern game simply would not exist if it stagnated.

    Flip sake if you transported a peak Chopper Harris into a game these days he'd be sent off on the way on to the pitch!

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    1. Stevie,

      let's not forget it was one full of rioting, substandard stadiums and play that was agricultural bordering on assault at times.

      Let's talk about football related violence in the modern game first.... open this and you can read quite a few reports from the BBC over the past few years showing how footy violence on and off the terraces is on the rise and the worst in years...includes murder.

      And while the stadiums aren't substandard anymore , it seems week after week the standards of some of the players off the pitch isn't great. There is Mason Greenwood, Benjamin Mendy, Ryan Giggs all with rape and or serious sexual assult charges hanging over them. Ronaldo has a rape allegation hanging over his head. I don't think the wives/families of John Terry, Ashley Cole, Wayne Rooney...Gaza are proud of them And thats the tip of the iceberg....

      Flip sake if you transported a peak Chopper Harris into a game these days he'd be sent off on the way on to the pitch!

      At least Chopper Harris had more in common and a bigger connection with the fans than most of the prima donna's have today.

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  4. It was the game as it should be played. To have been there was to experience it, unlike the tripe served up today. Fans who don't even attend games!! Whatever next? As for the rioting, it was no more than mods and rockers at Brighton and other coastal regions, in fact not as bad. It certainly could not match the Brit forces, army v navy,rugby union game when the town of Twickenham has to be closed down annually while drunken servicemen run riot. Military Police have to steward the event as it is too much for the civie police, an event which dwarfs anything occurring at an Association Football match.

    Whoever heard of refereeing via a television screen, absolute garbage. It was a game of four seasons, good in the early months, then a little heavier, hard through December, January and February then picking up again in March and April. Players had to be able to play in all conditions, not just when things are perfect. Yes, there was room for improvement in the stadia, but not all seating.

    Perhaps the only progressive aspect of the modern set up is the development of womens football. That is a good thing and will, I hope, go on and on.

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

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    1. Caoimhin

      The "game as it should be played" is very likely the cause of dementia and early death for so many of our heroes from yesterday due to excessive heading of the ball. Think Jeff Astle, Nobby Stiles, Jack Charlton, Billy McNeill, Gordon McQueen and many more.

      It was an era when health and safety concerns were non-existent on the pitch and on the terraces. As good trade unionists, Caoimhin and Anthony, you would surely agree that footballers were badly let down by the safety culture of the time and the insistence of club owners holding onto their registrations. Professional football is a work place it should always be remembered.

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    2. Barry - I don't know why you are asking me. I have not commented on that aspect of the game.

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  5. Another sign if the direction towards lunacy the game is taking, apart from the willful destruction of the FA Cup is the fuss over West Ham player, Kurt Zoumer, kicking his cat. No, he should not have done it. Perhaps he should be legally banned from ever keeping a domestic pet again, in fact, if the concern is for the animal, as it should be, this would be the correct way to penalise him with a heavy fine on top. But to make it an issue which dictates who David Moyes picks to play for West Ham is bordering on barmy. It would be in line with the direction the modern hybrid game of Association Football is taking, loony, absolute lunacy! Matt Busby, Bill Shankly, Tom Finney,George Best, Stan Mathews, Tommy Docherty, Brian Clough would turn in their graves.

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

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    1. I think it is the lunacy of society Caoimhin and not just the game. Too many want to be the loudest virtue signaller in town. He kicks humans every week and not a word uttered about it. Protection for animals definitely, and while we can never quite be certain why something might ignite the public imagination, but in a world where it is estimated that 3.1 million children die from malnourishment annually, this is blown well out of proportion.

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    2. British and Irish tend to hold pets in much higher regard than their fellow humans though. As soon as my son showed me the video I knew there'd be a huge backlash against him.

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  6. Definately Anthony, priorities arse first. As you say society has gone mad, "lunacy".

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