Cod Almighty | Diary

Listen, do you want to know a secret

24 May 2024

Miss Guest Diary writes: To watch or not to watch, that is the question. What am I talking about? The FA Cup Final, of course.

I come from the generation when there was virtually no live football on TV outside of the World Cup and the FA Cup Final. So it was an event, something we always watched in our house as a family. I remember my first – Spurs v Burnley in 1962. I lived near Wembley and out shopping on the Saturday morning with my Mum had been puzzled by seeing all these people wearing blue and white scarves and rosettes. My Mum explained what it was all about, so I insisted on watching the game when we got home. The only thing which sticks in my mind is that Jimmy Greaves scored a goal. When I consulted Wikipedia I discovered that he scored in the third minute, which was probably about the length of my 8-year-old attention span for a sport I knew nothing about.

Even when I was married to a rugby-playing Welshman we made an occasion of the day and went round to my parents' house for lunch and to watch the build-up. All those corny interviews from the team hotels and the coach driving up Wembley Way; in later years Cup Final Its a Knockout or Question of Sport were added. Back then it was always the last game of the domestic season – a sort of fitting climax – something which has rarely been the case more recently. The second division play-off final between Leeds and Southampton will take place at Wembley on Sunday.

This year's final is a repeat of last year's: Man City v Man United, which I did watch but can't remember a single thing about. The prospect of a repeat fills me with inertia and I am genuinely thinking of giving it a miss tomorrow. I'm sure if it's your team in the final it still retains the magic, but for the rest of us, especially fans of clubs lower down the pyramid, the FA Cup Final has long since ceased to be unmissable.

This time last month everyone had their knickers in a twist about the scrapping of FA Cup replays without any formal consultation with the football league. There were calls for the FA to reconsider its decision, Town were among various clubs condemning the changes, making suggestions of a boycott, even an early day motion in Parliament. Since then, nothing. Let's face it, we know how this will end: the top flight gets what the top flight wants and bugger the rest of us.

Tottenham and Newcastle have just played each other in Australia and many of the other Premier League teams will be embarking on pre-season tours in the USA. Fixture congestion, my foot.

Meanwhile in the real world, as of yesterday Town had sold 2,634 season tickets, and the new kit launch is eagerly awaited. There is one resident of CA Towers who got a sneak peek of the shirt design as long ago as October but he, and now I, are sworn to secrecy.

Talking of secrets, the identity of the next high profile interviewee to be Butchered is also embargoed. Sorry, despite having retired, the Offficial Secrets Act still applies. Unlike Town's defence last year, or the radiator in the hall, we don't leak.