Gloversblog: The sweet FA Cup

So once again we put our trust in a group of people who don’t even appear to know what days of the week the weekend falls on to maintain the soul of the world’s greatest cup competition.

The Football Association and the Premier League have cooked up a deal which stops the likes of Jurgen Klopp whinging that he’s down to his last 75 highly-talented players, and denied generations of football fans yet to come the true magic of the FA Cup.

If you are wondering what I am going on (whinging?) about, it is the decision to cut replays from the FA Cup First Round onwards seemingly without consulting anyone but themselves.

Oh no wait, apparently they did. But presumably the thousands of clubs who reacted in disgust in the 24 hours which followed the latest calamitous decision to come out of the cigar smoke-filled boardrooms these people reside in just did not realise it.

Yeovil Town – like almost everyone else – said they heard about it on Thursday, the same as the rest of us. I know who I believe on that one, and they’re not based at St George’s Park or Wembley.

It’s not about the money, apparently, which is easy to say when you have loads of it, but let’s look beyond even the money. As we spoke about on our latest podcast, what about the memories?

Just think if we hadn’t had the night at Hereford in which literally saved Yeovil Town from financial extinction in 1992? What if we never saw Matty Hayfield’s goal take Cardiff City to the death at Huish Park in 1999? What if Tom Knowles never got a chance to smash that W*ymouth steward in the head with his penalty kick or Grant Smith’s shagger hips in 2021?

Yes, there’s money involved in it the outrage which has followed the decision, but surely the dream of a replay at a Premier League club or taking a higher division club back to your place is what the FA Cup is all about. No doubt the FA will refer to “the magic of the Cup” in the years to come, but this decision proves they would not know that magic is if it punched them in the face.

As Ben said on the pod, who turns on Wolves-Brighton (unless you support either of those clubs, of course) and immediately feels they are in the presence of magic? Give me pampered prima donnas mixing it on a ploughed field of a pitch where they can feel the breath of a supporter when they take a throw-in over that sterile dross any day.

Thankfully it looks like clubs – including Yeovil Town – are ready to take a stand to get a better deal. Can they get replays reinstated? Unlikely, but money may be the only language which the people who have made this decision understand. So take them for every penny you can!

Agree? Then put your name to a petition calling for change: https://t.co/Vwyzjs5vQe