No wonder the FA Cup is dying on its feet. It is organised by the myopic and certainly geriatric and creakingly patriarchal FA and presented by the out-of-touch and very suburban maiden aunt we fondly call Beeb as she shuffles into her dotage.
Brilliantly they chose to present the draw for the "exciting" first round proper of the FA Cup from stately old Bradford City and ended up in a room of tightly-panelled middle-aged men from around the country, trying hard to evince the odd smile. To head proceedings Auntie Beeb wheeled out fourth-rate miniature presenter Kelly Somers to rehearse her perfectly researched one-line factettes about any club which happened to hove into view.
The problem is the FA has designed its flagship event to leave the dock with a whimper rather than a stunning aurora of galaxy-busting fireworks. The Cup launches on 34 non-league names, some very small indeed, joining giants like Accrington, Morecambe and Bromley. They might draw Wrexham or even Birmingham, we struggle to keep breathing as the lack on excitement mounts and clunky balls flop from a velvet bag to pair perhaps a non-entity against a wannabe or a has been.
Forty games are scheduled, so unexciting that many newspapers next day do not even report the draw, despite the interest of the 80 towns and cities involved. And, of course, to top up that mild absence of interest the FA finds itself then left with 40 clubs of varying levels of decay pitched into a second round designed simply to add 20 clubs to the 44 clubs from the Premier League and Championship, so far absolved from competing (with precious little jusitification). So the Third Round, with the competition, already well under way, is meant to sprinkle the magic dust about and and pitch the odd set of disregarded losers in against a club full of over-paid superstars, which will then have the arrogance to bench most of its stars and give the finger to an expectant crowd.
Apparently this lunatic arrangement saves the BIG clubs from two rounds of games, but in truth it is simply an unusual sleight of hand designed to destroy most of the magic. Small clubs who have fought their way through several rounds of qualifying have precious little chance of getting near a big name.
If ALL the EFL clubs and the Premier League Clubs entered the draw at the FIRST ROUND STAGE and the FA added just 2 more qualifying non-leaguers one round less of the competition would be played and the small clubs would have a better than one in seven chance of drawing a very big name opponent. The excitement of the First Round Draw would then make tiny Kelly Somers redundant and even Auntie Beeb might recognise the need for a Celeb' or three and a bit of American-style razzamatazz.
The big clubs would only have to agree to play one more game to revive this dying competition. Do the maths - 128 clubs in the first round (36 non-league and 92 league), 64 in a newly exciting second round, 32 only by the third round (where currently we overload on 64), 16 in the 4th, then 8, 4, 2. Move the excitement to the beginning of the competition like any other MAJOR sporting event. Excitement is at its peak when everything is to play for, and imagine the delirium in Horsham if they had been able to draw Man City away instead of Chesterfield.
Brilliantly they chose to present the draw for the "exciting" first round proper of the FA Cup from stately old Bradford City and ended up in a room of tightly-panelled middle-aged men from around the country, trying hard to evince the odd smile. To head proceedings Auntie Beeb wheeled out fourth-rate miniature presenter Kelly Somers to rehearse her perfectly researched one-line factettes about any club which happened to hove into view.
The problem is the FA has designed its flagship event to leave the dock with a whimper rather than a stunning aurora of galaxy-busting fireworks. The Cup launches on 34 non-league names, some very small indeed, joining giants like Accrington, Morecambe and Bromley. They might draw Wrexham or even Birmingham, we struggle to keep breathing as the lack on excitement mounts and clunky balls flop from a velvet bag to pair perhaps a non-entity against a wannabe or a has been.
Forty games are scheduled, so unexciting that many newspapers next day do not even report the draw, despite the interest of the 80 towns and cities involved. And, of course, to top up that mild absence of interest the FA finds itself then left with 40 clubs of varying levels of decay pitched into a second round designed simply to add 20 clubs to the 44 clubs from the Premier League and Championship, so far absolved from competing (with precious little jusitification). So the Third Round, with the competition, already well under way, is meant to sprinkle the magic dust about and and pitch the odd set of disregarded losers in against a club full of over-paid superstars, which will then have the arrogance to bench most of its stars and give the finger to an expectant crowd.
Apparently this lunatic arrangement saves the BIG clubs from two rounds of games, but in truth it is simply an unusual sleight of hand designed to destroy most of the magic. Small clubs who have fought their way through several rounds of qualifying have precious little chance of getting near a big name.
If ALL the EFL clubs and the Premier League Clubs entered the draw at the FIRST ROUND STAGE and the FA added just 2 more qualifying non-leaguers one round less of the competition would be played and the small clubs would have a better than one in seven chance of drawing a very big name opponent. The excitement of the First Round Draw would then make tiny Kelly Somers redundant and even Auntie Beeb might recognise the need for a Celeb' or three and a bit of American-style razzamatazz.
The big clubs would only have to agree to play one more game to revive this dying competition. Do the maths - 128 clubs in the first round (36 non-league and 92 league), 64 in a newly exciting second round, 32 only by the third round (where currently we overload on 64), 16 in the 4th, then 8, 4, 2. Move the excitement to the beginning of the competition like any other MAJOR sporting event. Excitement is at its peak when everything is to play for, and imagine the delirium in Horsham if they had been able to draw Man City away instead of Chesterfield.
![[Image: 2ZJuVRk.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/2ZJuVRk.gif)
