Whatever happened to the FA Cup third round?

No one likes an old codger drivelling on about the good old days. But you don’t always get what you want in life. Wallowing in nostalgia was a big motivator behind me starting this blog in 2012, so strap yourself in for full-on rant from a grumpy old man.

I’m the same every January. Less than thrilled at the prospect of another year at the grindstone, I always struggle getting myself up and running in the new year. But my mood is hardly helped when FA Cup third round weekend arrives.

It used to be one of the highlights of the footballing calendar. A weekend that would hopefully start your team’s road to Wembley, as we all dreamed of an FA Cup run that would end with your skipper holding the famous old trophy aloft. Oh, how I long for yesterday.

Apologies for slipping into Ron Manager mode, but it’s quite difficult not to rattle out the clichés when discussing the FA Cup third round during my childhood. The draw on a Monday lunchtime; newspaper coverage filling column inches in the whole week leading up to the matches; awful pitches; replay marathons; wallcharts; the vast majority of ties played on a Saturday; genuine shocks.

Above all, it mattered. The FA Cup third round was not seen as a distraction, an annoying extra set of matches to be played during the hectic festive fixtures. Playing squads back in the 1980s were much thinner, and the playing surfaces stodgier, yet this didn’t cause any grumbling. Players, supporters, and club officials were all up for the cup.

“Greed is good” we were told during the 80s. Ironically, this is the reason for the death of the FA Cup. Clubs desperate to win the Premier League now play reserve teams in this stage of the competition, yet sadly they are not alone. Others striving for Champions League qualification, many attempting to stay in the top flight, and those hoping to gain promotion field weakened teams.

Money, money, money has not been funny for the FA Cup. It has killed it, stone dead. Club chairman now have pound signs spinning around their eyes like cherries on a fruit machine, and why should Premier League status or Champions League hopes be threatened by a pesky nuisance like the FA Cup?

How do supporters feel about this? As an Arsenal fan I’d happily take 2014, 2015 and 2017 over Champions League qualification, but maybe I’m in the minority with this? Supporting a team isn’t all about trophies and medals, but surely on your death bed you would like to cast your mind back to a glorious cup run rather than recall your club’s profit and loss account.

Brighton fans old enough to remember the 1983 FA Cup run may have been disappointed about relegation in the same season, but the memories created on the road to Wembley will last forever. Ditto with Middlesbrough supporters in 1997. Anyone associated with Wigan may well have accepted two relegations for that day at Wembley in 2013.

You now see shocks in the FA Cup and shrug your shoulders, as you know team selection has a lot to do with this. One commentator on the BBC stated that Brighton would be happy to be out of the FA Cup so that they could concentrate on staying up. I hate to say, “it is what it is”, but “it is what it is.”

The saddest thing about it all is that I don’t think there is a solution to this. People mention offering a Champions League place for the FA Cup winners, but those with sights on a top four spot would still play reserve teams. Maybe dropping a set of league fixtures over Christmas would lead to less rotation, yet this would not provide a guarantee of managers picking stronger teams.

Please forgive us oldies as we endlessly blather on about the demise of the FA Cup. Many of us still love the competition, yet it’s probably time to move on and simply accept that things will never be the same again. We should be grateful that we can recall a time that the competition at its peak.

And at least it’s not quite as alarming as the decline of the BDO World Darts Championship.