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Tranmere and Rochdale’s TV snub suggests FA Cup replays have had their day
The FA Cup, once the competition that brought all of English football together, has become incredibly divisive. As the third‑round replays get under way this coming week, it will be hard not to notice that Wolves did not actually want an extra game at Old Trafford. It will be their 38th of an already long season, it will still be only mid-January, and Nuno Espírito Santo would have been perfectly happy for the matter to have been settled on penalties at Molineux.
Traditionalists keen to hang on to the magic of the Cup will have been more encouraged by Tranmere’s performance at Watford. Not only the three-goal second‑half fightback that earned them a draw, but the eagerness with which Micky Mellon embraced Tuesday’s Prenton Park replay. “It’s the sort of distraction our bank manager enjoys,” the Rovers manager said. “I’d like 10 replays.”
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That seems much more like it, except Mellon’s post-match euphoria was probably based on the assumption that taking a Premier League team back to the Wirral would guarantee a televised game and a bumper crowd. The TV fee alone would have earned Tranmere a half share of £150,000, but in the event the broadcast companies turned their back on the fixture, for the same reason a significant number of fans might do likewise.
Nigel Pearson has made no apologies for prioritising the league this season and if he puts out another reserve team at Tranmere it hardly counts as the sort of giantkilling prospect to fire the popular imagination.
Rochdale at Newcastle is not being televised either, and with advance tickets on sale for as little as £10 it may not turn out to be the financial bonanza originally envisaged. Newcastle are a scalp of sorts, though their recent FA Cup record is woeful, yet it evidently counts for little that Watford actually made it to the final last season.
In effect television has rejected the traditional appeal of the FA Cup – the possibility of smaller teams causing an upset – in favour of offering more coverage of what is regularly available throughout the season, to wit the ups and downs of Manchester United and of José Mourinho. The BBC is showing Middlesbrough at Tottenham, even though the Championship side are playing away, while BT is happy with United v Wolves, despite the original game producing no goals and neither manager being particularly keen to meet again.
Yes, replays can be a financial lifeline to smaller clubs, but the FA Cup will never make a comeback as a charity
This is where we are with the Cup at the moment. The TV companies are not ruining it – though Aston Villa’s Dean Smith had a point when he regretted the decision to allow the final to kick off at 5.30pm – they are merely reflecting the apathy and indifference being shown by the clubs. It would be quite difficult to convince anyone born this century that within living memory the FA Cup was regarded as the biggest prize of all, its winners frequently more garlanded and better-remembered than the league champions of any given year, because between them the money-driven Premier League and Champions League have consigned the older competition to Pathé News-type irrelevance.
Everyone knows this and, but for Jürgen Klopp possessing some remarkable young talent and the willingness to showcase it, the latest round of inquests into the sad demise of the FA Cup would have started a week ago. Instead Liverpool’s progress was unusually uplifting for anyone who did not happen to be an Evertonian and even Smith’s comments about the Cup losing its sparkle had to be put in the context of a Villa side fourth bottom of the table with a two‑legged League Cup semi-final lying ahead.
Like Rab C Nesbitt’s marriage – when Mrs N complained it had lost its sparkle her indefatigable husband offered to pop round to the off-licence for some cider – the FA Cup will probably never regain its former effervescence, yet there are certain steps it could take to make itself more popular. Dropping replays altogether would be a start.
What Nuno at Wolves must find it hard to understand, as a relative newcomer to this country, is why third- and fourth-round replays are necessary when they no longer take place from the fifth round onwards. There is no logic to this plainly daft situation. Yes, replays can be a financial lifeline to smaller clubs but the FA Cup will never make a comeback as a charity, the fixture list is already overcrowded and there are clear signs that the days of guaranteed money-spinners are coming to an end anyway.
Nuno was not simply complaining about fixture overload either, he felt that the possibility of a replay had reduced urgency. “The game would have been more emotional if a result had to be produced on the day,” he said. This is at least worth considering. It is not as if every drawn third-round tie involves a thrilling recovery or an improbable hero. Some are just humdrum games that do not need repeating.
The idea of axing the replay tradition usually leads people to mention the great dramas they have thrown up in the past, Arsenal v Manchester United in 1999, say, or Everton against Liverpool eight years earlier, with Kenny Dalglish resigning in between games. It would be a wrench, though all too clearly these are exceptions rather than the rule.
Most replays merely clog up the fixture list. If stripping them out completely is too much to bear, perhaps replays could be preserved – actually reintroduced – for semi‑finals only. That would, of course, necessitate going back to playing semis on neutral grounds that are not Wembley, which sounds like something on a Dean Smith wishlist. It is not an ideal solution, but while nothing about the FA Cup is ideal at the moment, it still needs to be better than it is.
Related: St Andrew’s empty stands a sign of FA Cup’s fading, but not forgotten, magic | Jonathan Liew
Replay pointers
Blackpool v Reading (Tuesday 7.45) Reading have failed to win any of their last five away games against Blackpool in all competitions (D2 L3), failing to score on three occasions.
Coventry v Bristol Rovers (Tuesday 7.45) Coventry have lost only one of their last 15 home games against Bristol Rovers in all competitions, winning 11 encounters in the process (D3).
Tottenham v Boro (Tuesday 8.05pm, BBC1) Tottenham are unbeaten in their last nine home games against Middlesbrough in all competitions (W6 D3), but did lose a penalty shootout in this run, in December 2003 in a League Cup quarter-final.
Tranmere v Watford (Tuesday 7.45) Tranmere have won five of their past six home games against Watford in all competitions (L1), but this is the first such meeting since November 2000 (a 2-0 league win in the second tier).
Newcastle v Rochdale (Tuesday 7.45) Newcastle have lost just one of their last 27 FA Cup home matches against sides from a lower division (W21 D5), losing 1-5 against Birmingham in 2007 in a third‑round replay.
Shrewsbury v Bristol City (Tuesday 7.45) Bristol City have progressed in each of their previous four FA Cup ties against lower division teams, last crashing out of the competition in such a match-up in January 2012 against Crawley.
Carlisle v Cardiff (Wednesday 7.45) Cardiff have won two of their last three third-round replays (L1), after losing their previous four such matches.
Man Utd v Wolves (Wednesday 7.45, BT Sport 1) United are without a win in five games against Wolves in all competitions (D3 L2) since a 5-0 victory in the Premier League in March 2012.
