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Why the FA Cup is still fighting fit:

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ITV have selected the Upton Park tie as one for their schedule, the lure of being able to show two top-flight clubs on terrestrial television being too much to resist.  It is conceivable to imagine that rather than the desired vibrant and robust match, contested between two first-choice elevens in front of a boisterous and fervent East End crowd, the reality will be very different.  More likely is that Sam Allardyce and Sir Alex Ferguson will rest front line performers for a game played with less intensity than any league fixture with – most sadly of all – a plethora of empty seats visible to the cameras, while those who do pay through the turnstiles fail to rouse from a Saturday lunchtime slumber.

Swansea’s positive approach to this season’s League Cup, and the attitude of their manager Michael Laudrup towards knock-out football in previous jobs – he won two Danish Cups with Brondby and led Getafe in Spain to a Copa del Rey final – bodes well for the Welsh club’s televised collision with Arsenal.  Less encouraging is Arsene Wenger’s diminishing love for the trophy he has won four times.  Regardless of his growing band of discontented detractors, the steadfastly intransigent Frenchman will have no hesitation in fielding a team shorn of many of its stars.

It is the behemoths of the game, infatuated with the pursuit of Champions League football, who with their dismissive lack of respect subtly place the idea in our minds that the F.A. Cup is less significant than it once was.

Notwithstanding that, the celebrated ‘magic of the cup’ is still very much alive if we look hard enough.  It is at Whaddon Road on Monday nights in December, and indeed at Whaddon Road on Sunday afternoons in October, when Gloucester City – who share the ground – hosted Eastleigh in the 3rd qualifying round.  At that stage, supporters of these clubs – whose passion is equal to, and in many cases in excess of, that of their counterparts who follow any of the fashionable elite – dream of the first round and a tie with the likes of Monday night’s protagonists.  Gloucester did indeed advance to a match with Leyton Orient.

The true spirit of the third round will be found in the eventual victors of the Hereford and Cheltenham replay taking centre stage in the national football spotlight on a Monday night and pitting their wits against Everton – no strangers to being upset by a pesky minnow.  A day earlier, either Lincoln City or Mansfield Town will greet the mighty Liverpool into their humble surroundings.  ESPN should be congratulated on airing both of these unique occasions.

A raft of other potentially captivating clashes were set-up by the hands of Ledley King and Fabrice Muamba in Sunday’s draw which – although not possessing of the intrigue that the sounds of jostling balls on the radio of a Monday lunchtime while then F.A. Chief Executive Graham Kelly oversaw matters with all the gravity one would expect of an individual commentating on a state funeral – was at least undertaken by football people, with not a ‘pop star’ or ‘television personality’ in sight.

The wonderful 1987 final will be re-visited when Coventry City travel to play Spurs.  Hastings United or Harrogate Town (another non-league pairing who will have their moment in the sun with their 2nd round replay brought to our living rooms) will have the opportunity to play at Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium.  Brighton & Hove Albion continue their re-emergence into the national conscience against Newcastle, and old Italian team-mates Roberto Mancini and Gianfranco Zola become managerial enemies for an afternoon when Zola’s mercurial Watford team travel to the Etihad Stadium.

Follow any of these ties back to their roots at the very beginning of the tournament in August and there are myriad stories to be told.  Wembley semi-finals and rotated teams may cost this marvellous competition a little lustre when it approaches its climax but in reality the F.A. Cup isn’t about Chelsea or Manchester United or Liverpool even if they ultimately lift the famous trophy from now until John Terry is tending his allotment with great-grandchildren snapping at his creaking knees.

The F.A. Cup belongs to the smaller clubs for whom it still matters, and to the supporters to whom it always should.

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