There’s a bloke who sits across from me at work who drives me mad. His constant humming, the shit tinny music emanating from his headphones, his endless coffee slurping and picking food from his teeth drives me regularly to the point of wanting to jump out of my twelfth-floor-office window.
This morning, about 10 o’clock, he laid down his McDonald’s sausage and egg McMuffin and said: “What you got planned for the weekend?”
“Not much,” I said.
Then it struck me. On Sunday my team will take to the Wembley turf to contest a Cup Final. I’d forgotten. That certainly says something about the quality of the League Cup, and the standing of cup football in general.
When I was a kid, a cup final – any cup final – meant weeks of build-up and anticipation. It was a time when footballers didn’t enjoy the media exposure they do today, yet the seven days leading up to the game would see endless cup-related programmes - charting the ‘road to Wembley’ and showing players from both sides introducing us to their team-mates’ stupid nicknames. “That’s Phil Parks. We call him Parksy” etc etc. The playground was full of talk of nothing else. The cup took over. The ‘magic of the cup’.
Cup-final day itself would start at 7am, with reports from the team hotel and cameras tracking the team buses on their journey to the stadium. A presenter – a genuinely knowledgeable presenter rather than an ex-footballer - would stand outside the ground, waiting for a celebrity fan to come by for a quick word.
There’d be programmes from the clubs’ local factories to show us what it means to the ordinary man. Someone whose granddad played for one of the teams 176 years ago would show us his medal or some old shirt he wore in the game. Away from the TV, the local butcher would dress a pig carcass in his team’s colours and put it in the window. The Co-op would be empty. The roads were as empty as Christmas morning. Mums would have to do their shopping in the morning so dad could watch the match in the afternoon. It never rained. It was always glorious weather. And there was always drama. ‘Killer’ Kilkline with the diving header, Mabbutt with the glorious own goal, United back from two down only for Brady to swing it over for Sunderland to win it in the last minute, Beasant with the first ever penalty save in a cup final.
All of this was reward for a long, long road to Wembley – sometimes involving as many as three replays in one tie alone. How things have changed. We played four games to get there on Sunday – and three of those were against Newcastle , Wigan and Ipswich .
I’ve said many times in this blog that the league Cup is pretty worthless. That only the Premier league and the Champions League are really worth winning or a genuine test of a team.
I stand by that. If we win on Sunday, will anyone really say Wenger’s project is complete because his team of young stars - assembled on a limited budget - has now won silverware? Or will they say ‘you’ve still only won a shit cup’.
Don’t get me wrong. I want us to win on Sunday. I really do. And I think a win could be a pivotal moment for this team. It could convince some key players with half an eye on a move to the Barcelonas of this world that this team is on the verge of more significant success. It might also go some way to repairing the so-called ‘psychological weakness’ that is rumoured to be stopping us winning the title and the Champions League. It might well get some of the critics of Wenger’s back. And it will definitely be enjoyable watching the highlights when I get in.
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