3 hours ago
YES YES YES. One of the reasons I have reached my conclusions is that the Third Round DID once upon a time ride to the FA Cup's rescue. Now because of the existence of large squads and big money being at stake for league positions, being drawn against a big club is far less exciting. If Chesterfield reached the Third Round and managed to beat say Leicester City 1-0 we'd be thrilled, but in the last few years Championship clubs have struggled to see us off, Leicester would probably field less than half its full-strength team and we are professional and fairly well organised. The rest of football wouldn't be that surprised if we won. It wouldn't have the magic of Ronnie Radford impossibly hammering the ball out of cloying mud into the top corner to beat Newcastle. That magic we all could share has died. Chesterfield beating Leicester would be pretty much ho-hum for football outside those two places.
Going off with a big bang, so that everybody could really draw anybody else in the first round is one way to invest the FA Cup once more with glamour and magic. Monday night's draw looked like the Wheeltappers and Shunters. Okay it paid homage to the past, but at the end I felt the curtains should have drawn as the coffin trndled off to be cremated. It didn't feel like the future and it seemed like only to appeal to those with almost as long a memory as mine!
Going off with a big bang, so that everybody could really draw anybody else in the first round is one way to invest the FA Cup once more with glamour and magic. Monday night's draw looked like the Wheeltappers and Shunters. Okay it paid homage to the past, but at the end I felt the curtains should have drawn as the coffin trndled off to be cremated. It didn't feel like the future and it seemed like only to appeal to those with almost as long a memory as mine!