Robert Exley
Once upon a time the build up to the coverage on FA Cup Final Saturday started as early as 11.30AM (look, see here for yourself if you don’t believe me kids!) in order to work the viewing public up to frenzy come 3PM. This year, come 3PM on FA Cup Final Saturday, according to the TV listings it will instead be when the build-up of the game begins. It’s rather ironic that, while the FA still insist that their showpiece Cup Final is of such importance that every neutral under the sun should still be able to make a claim on a Cup Final ticket (it’s not just this season that the competing sides have been given such a paltry allocation, that’s as much a part of the event’s tradition as the singing of ‘Abide with Me’ and the Duke of Kent’s raison d'être of handing out sports trophies in exchange for living on public funds), however its traditions are no longer important enough to prevent its kick off being moved to 5PM in the evening.
Call me old fashioned, but any kicking off on Cup Final day at 5PM should mean extra time and players randomly collapsing with cramp in the Wembley sunshine. However, the last thing any Hull City (not Tigers!) fans would want this Saturday would be extra time or penalties, seeing that their last train back to Humberside on Saturday will be at 8PM from Kings Cross. From experience, even if the game ends within ninety minutes, given the difficulties leaving the stadium after any event held there, the furthest they’ll get by 8PM should be the entrance of Wembley Park underground station.
Given the modern tendency to leave a game before the final whistle to beat the rush to the tube, don’t be surprised to see some panicked Hull fans vacating the stadium en masse before the end - such is that scourge on modern football that it may now infect the FA Cup final, thanks to typical ‘F.A’ foresight! It’s yet another nail in the coffin of the Cup Final’s magic, but hey, as long as the game doesn’t clash with the Scottish Cup Final between St. Johnstone v Dundee United at Hampden, or the post-match analysis of Southend United v Burton Albion (the only other fixtures played on Cup Final day this year) and, more importantly, as long as ITV can maximise their advertising revenue from the game, I suppose that’s the main thing. But rather than turn this into another ‘they ruined the Cup Final’ piece, here’s my article from two years ago – which sadly still largely rings true today, just in case anyone thought I wrote the piece in sour grapes back then.
Thankfully, the club have laid on coverage of the game on big screens at the Stadium this Saturday for many Arsenal fans to view the proceeds among a partisan atmosphere. A brave decision by the club however, given that come 7pm (or 7.45pm if extra time and penalties are necessary) should Arsenal fail to finally seal their first trophy in nine years, there a strong risk that maybe around 20,000 annoyed Arsenal fans within the stadium – as well as many others watching in their favourite nearby match day haunts, who are charging ticketed entrance to this game New Years’ Eve style –will be ready and willing to create an instant demonstration in protest, especially given the clubs decision to impose an above inflation ticket price rise for next season.
In all honesty, many feel that Saturday should be a mere formality that ends nine years of hurt. However, alarm bells should be ringing whenever Arsenal enter a major game as favourites. Maybe there’s something about Arsenal being within football’s elite for most of the years since the end of the first world war that means were attached to so many of these acts of giant-killing over the years. The wounds are still fresh from 2011 when even a longstanding gypsy’s curse wasn’t enough to guarantee our first trophy since Wembley was refurbished. The final stages of the competition that year looked easy on paper, as last year’s League Cup would have done had we got past fourth tier Bradford City - and surely you don’t need me to remind you of how that one turned out!
In all fairness to Arsene Wenger, this hoodoo isn’t something which started with his reign. It even afflicted George Graham. In the last four years of his tenure at Highbury, only winning the FA Cup in 1993 punctuated a period where Arsenal were eliminated by lower division opposition – Wrexham in 1992, Bolton in 1994 and Millwall in 1995 – for three years out of four. Even early on in GG’s reign Arsenal fans thought that beating Luton Town at Wembley was a mere formality to retain the Littlewoods Cup in ’88 until the hapless Gus Caesar tripped over a worm in his own penalty area. I vaguely remember Harry Enfield’s Arsenal supporting kebab shop-owner character Stavros, in an episode of Friday Night Live that year, being so disappointed by this result that he refused to fly abroad on holiday from Luton Airport and instead took a vacation in Bournemouth instead.
The earlier half of that decade saw even worse atrocities etched on memory – York in ’85 and Walsall two years prior which reprised an earlier humiliation of a much better Arsenal side half a century earlier. That defeat spelt the end for Terry Neill, who never really recovered from 1980 and the Cup Final defeat against second tier West Ham. That same season, Arsenal were eliminated from the League Cup against Swindon, itself another reprisal of an earlier humiliation in 1969 at the hands of a third tier side, where Arsenal failed to end a sixteen year trophy drought in a 1-3 Wembley defeat.
During those barren years, there was also an FA Cup fourth round 2-1 away defeat against lowly Peterborough which occurred on the same day as Winston Churchill’s state funeral in 1965 (unlike Princess Diana’s thirty two years later, Football didn’t cancel its programme as a mark of respect!) Arsenal however luckily dodged a bullet in 1956, after losing a two goal lead at home to non-league Bedford Town in the third round of the FA Cup. The replay amazingly saw Bedford lead until four minutes from time, when Vic Groves – Perry’s uncle – headed to equalise with Arsenal running out 2-1 winners after extra time. This particular game was notable for its second half being the first shown live on the fledgling ITV channel, Associated Rediffusion on a Thursday afternoon (as this Pathe news footage informs, so many Bedford office boys were ‘burying their grandmothers’ that day, that the entire town shut down to view the match).
As an historical overview therefore, it seems that in the post-war era very rarely have Arsenal been in a final where, even where a walkover is expected, it actually pans out as such. The only comfortable ride over a side we were expected to beat I can think of is Southampton in 2003, although it’s fair to say even winning the FA Cup that year was an anti-climax after blowing the league title to Man Utd just weeks earlier. That final doesn’t go down as one that sticks in the memory even for Robert Pires - whose goal sealed the cup that year. At a pre-match Q&A with Pires for an away screening at Arsenal last year, someone had asked him about ‘that’ goal against Southampton in 2003 as a career highlight, referring to the Cup Final. Pires answered in reply: ‘er…Southampton….you mean the 6-1?’ referring to his blistering – yet, aside from the inception of the famed 49 game undefeated run, ultimately meaningless – hat-trick at Highbury just a few days prior.
For the sake of my blood pressure, I’m hoping Saturday goes against the grain of past finals and is one-way traffic in Arsenal’s favour. In a reverse of the title of The Housemartins’ 1986 debut album, I’m hoping for London 4 Hull 0 and that 7pm on Saturday is a long-awaited ‘Happy Hour’ for North London’s finest. However should Hull win the cup as a result of a disputed goal, I’m sure that Steve Bruce would return Arsene’s favour in 1999 and offer him a replay!
*Follow me on Twitter@robert_exley
Ed’s note – Arseblogger Andrew Mangan has done a few good turns for me over the years, so now the chance to go a little way to doing something in return by plugging the launch of the new Arseblog title, Together: The Story Of Arsenal’s Unbeaten Season, which takes place at the Tollington Arms tomorrow evening (Thursday). Your chance to meet the great man himself and get a signed copy of the book.
