I loved the FA Cup final ever since I can remember and today I will be switching on to the BBC coverage as I have always done. Maybe love is a bit too strong, but I still think it is the best competition in the world.
No matter which team you supported it was the biggest football day bar none unlike now where the bigger clubs treat the game as second fiddle to Champions League or Premiership survival. When I was a kid the competition was steeped in history and magic with some of my earliest memories of watching football on TV were FA Cup finals. Live football was rare not like today with wall-to-wall football.
Back then the technology was poor the cameras were massive and something like broadcasting from the team bus was an amazing feat. The whole build-up to the game was exciting; the stories of success, failure and my team Cardiff City would always get a mention because they were the only club to take the FA Cup out of England.
From the early rounds, I was hooked and I loved viewing the results because there were teams I had never heard of before. I liked It’s a Knockout and remembering they did a show one before the game with fans of both teams. It may have be short lived but it helped make the day. Before kick-off the street would empty, it would be like a ghost town, it was family time around the TV in our house even football-hating mum would even watch.
There was a pattern to my day with our house a BBC one. On the BBC, you would have all the normal stuff like ‘Meet the Players’ and ‘Road to Wembley’ and the aforementioned ‘It’s a Cup Final Knockout’. ITV would be the same and checking out the schedule for 1972 (Arsenal v Leeds final) they were showing things like, ‘My Dads Wembley’, ‘Cup Final Wrestling’, and the ‘Comedians’. I was 12 years old then and a sponge for all things football.
One final that sticks in my mine was the Chelsea v Leeds United (1969/1970) the final was famous for the hostility between both sets of players. They both had their hard men with the likes of ‘Chopper Harris’ for Chelsea and Leeds had Billy Bremner who was flattened with a "kung Fu" challenge. Harris was detailed to mark Wembley Man of the Match Eddie Gray in the replay but after a series of fouls during the first half effectively immobilised the Scot. Elsewhere, Charlton kneed and head-butted Osgood, Hunter, and Hutchinson traded punches, and goalkeeper Bonetti was injured after being bundled into the net by Jones and limped through the rest of the match with a heavily bandaged knee. The word “bloodbath” was used for the game that saw thirty-five fouls given against Chelsea and 11 against Leeds. If the game was being played today there wouldn’t been anyone left on the pitch.
Every year since I was a teenager I would follow a team from the opening round today and this season with all the war celebration I picked Dunkirk FC. That was way back in August.
- Extra Preliminary Round - Dunkirk FC
- Preliminary Round – Shepshed Dynamo FC
- First Round Qualifying – Sheffield FC
- Second Round Qualifying – Warrington Town
- Third Round Qualifying – Warrington Town
- Fourth Round Qualifying – Warrington Town
- First Round Proper – Warrington Town
- Second Round Proper – Gateshead FC
- Third Round – West Brom
- Fourth Round – West Brom
- Fifth Round West Brom
- Sixth Round – West Brom
- Semi-Final – Aston Villa
- Final – Aston Villa
Not the best runs to the final so that means along with Prince William I will be on the Aston Villa side of the fence for one game only.
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