Final Fantasy

The FA Cup final used to be a showpiece event in England. Many now deem it an irrelevance and they might be right. So much has been done to dismantle the competition that Manchester United did not feel the need to enter just a decade ago. The one thing that you cannot take away from the FA Cup final is how it provides an almost timeless image of where the game is at that moment in time.

The 2011 final is contested between Manchester City and Stoke City. Perfect. Football has reached some of its lowest ebbs in recent times and this season has done nothing to improve its image. A poor World Cup has been followed by a poor Premier League and now the final of football’s oldest competition offers the perfect platform to explain to the watching world just why it is so.


Manchester City will hide behind their fans. To an extent they always have. City have had patient fans, loyal fans and even some famous ones along the way. They have provided the life and soul of the club when it plunged to depths that other clubs with such support could never reach.

When Paul Dickov and Nicky Weaver pulled them off life-support the City fans were the headline act.
So many were pleased for those most loyal of supporters. Why? Cos there’s loads of them apparently.

City fans are at the centre of the debate once more as the ugly financial side of football smashes its way through the game. City fans can rightly feel it is their turn - that they are doing nothing that Chelsea did not do before them. They are right. City come to the party with the VIP tickets and a team that beat the red devils with Prada. They will be at football’s top table of sorts after a couple of years of horrible spending. The rest will no doubt be inevitable.

They will progress if not this year then in years to come. Despite their failings (Adebayor, Robinho, Bellamy, Kolo Toure) they have been able to hide them. And the fans sing along by defending the work in the community the club is doing - claiming this is a cup-run that holds a connection to the passing of Neil Young as opposed to the brute force of Arabian petro-dollars. Football has a price and that is one City can more than afford just like Roman Abramovich before them. And in 2011 football has its prom king built in a land that Lowry would find hard to relate.

And so to the prom queen. How can you not like Stoke City in this match. Stoke have a loyal following, a battle hardened manager who is honest in his work. The club are stable with a history in the game that can match the best England has to offer. And then they cross the white line. The eyes glaze over and we see how a team can match another. 11 vs. 11. And the ugly truth of the game is brutal.

Stoke City have pushed football back decades in their style and their success is a worry. There will be those who will plead with you to see the hidden depths. To see past the long thows and Robert Huth. Don’t believe a word.

Wimbledon in 1988 beat the most attractive Liverpool side in years in what was to prove a terrible moment in football. Vinnie Jones was legitimised and all that went with it.

Wimbledon prided themselves on matching the best in any way they could. And they did. It was only for the benefit of Wimbledon. Football lost a generation to this type of ’up-and-down’ style. Following in their slipstream came a host of teams in a similar style terrorising the league. Step forward Sheffield United and Cambridge United.

Stoke will be seen as an example of where clubs without the ‘big-money’ can get to.

This season should have been all about Ian Hollway and the Blackpool side that played with verve and creativity despite themselves. Wigan and Blackpool could have been the bright lights.

Instead football has got ugly again.