Cup tied

After the Lord Mayor’s show…. It is back to the humdrum for football today following last week’s all-embracing showstoppers in the FA Cup. Two or three years ago, we know-alls were writing off the world’s most antique annual tournament (est. 1872) as a geriatric diversion far past its sell-by date. Winning it offered no access to that licence to print money, the European Champions’ League, so once the strutters of Manchester United didn’t even bother entering. The supposed pre-eminence of the Premiership had moved things on, so the very idea of ‘dragon-slaying minnows’ was as preposterous in possibility as it was convoluted in metaphor.

But Manchester United are desperate now for the FA Cup. So are Sky television, who had not blinked an eye when the BBC, in extremis, had bagged the bulk of the Cup’s broadcasting rights. Sky would dearly like them back exclusively, its wall-to-wall Premiership coverage having seriously lost its zing as Chelsea’s domination enters its third commanding year. Rouble-rich Chelsea have dulled all competition; the phoney battles are for place money, and the only watchable catfights, between the usual relegation suspects, are as graceless and gruesome as ever. At least the celeb swank of the majority of soccer’s Babel-towered gravy-trained stars — as well as the hype in the public prints — is mercifully dimmed. The most fruitful way to enjoy domestic league football is on the televised highlights programmes which seduce you with 40-second snatches of glittery tinsel-wrapped goalmouth chunks. In between, in reality, are hours of laboured dross. For theatre, the FA Cup is best seat in the circle now: I haven’t yet seen last week’s third-round television ratings, but unquestionably they will obliterate this weekend’s for the routine league fixtures when tomorrow Chelsea, aptly somehow, meet rock-bottom Sunderland — a prime no-contest with knobs on.