Hats off to Aston Villa for keeping the spirit of the Cup competitions alive.

The magic of the F.A. cup (and to a lesser extent, the League cup) has been something the British game has thrived on for a long time. Good attendances, competitive games with the top sides keen to win the trophy and avoid a banana skin of a Cup Upset (now commonly called ‘Cupset’ by the trendy youth media of the day). There have ben plenty of classic games and upsets down the years, my own team Leeds United being involved in winning the trophy in 1972, but also as well remembered for losing to Div 4 Colchester United, and losing to 2nd division underdogs Sunderland in the 1973 final, the Mackems winning thanks to a great goal from Ian Porterfield and an unbelievable save, usually included on the best saves of all time reels, from Montgomery and in spite of Leeds dominating possession and chances, the red and white stripes showed true grit to hang in and win.

In recent years though, the F.A. Cup has seemingly lost some of that magic. Almost all of the top half of the Premier League view qualifying for Europe via the Champions League (and even the Europa League) as their priority. It’s not hard to see why, a typical Cup winning run will bring in 4-5 TV appearances at around 600,000 (split with the opponent) for rounds 3-5, 800,000 for the quarter-final and semis, and 1.5 million for the final. So TV money is typically around 2-3 million pounds. The gate receipts (which are shared 45% each to both teams, and 10% to the F.A.), vary more widely from a typical figure of 1.5 – 3.5 million depending on the size of the gate, and which is why almost any club outside of the PL likes an away draw at Old Trafford, even if they get hammered. In the best case scenario, a winning Cup run can be worth around 6.5 million, but more typically, it’s worth around 4 to 4.5 million for most PL teams. For many clubs, even in the PL, this is significant – However, if you qualify for the group stages of the Champions League, you are guaranteed 6 million pounds of TV money alone, not including 3 home games with 95% gate receipts (which for a team like Man U is worth another 2.4 million). And should you make the last 8, this increases to around 12 million and winning the whole thing is worth 18.5 million, not including gate receipts which can make this figure up to around 25 million in total.

Therefore, many league sides who are challenging for the Champions League top 4 places in the Premier League, often field a team weakened with reserves and youngsters risking that this might be enough to get through and if not, well, we didn’t lose players to injury for the Premier League in their quest to achieve that top 4 finish. Manchester United even withdrew from the 2000 F.A. cup to play in a World Club Competition (albeit, pressurized into doing so for political reasons by the government and F.A. to try and land the 2006 World Cup). A cynical element has cropped up since then in the Cup with attendances down significantly, and in some cases, leading to ‘less glamourous’ finals such as the 2008 final of Portsmouth vs Cardiff City (of the 2nd tier Championship League) playing a dire game to a 1-0 win for Portsmouth. This year, already Man United, Liverpool and Arsenal (the top 3 teams in terms of support and viewing figures for matches) are out of the Cup, Man United losing to my club Leeds (currently 2 divisions below the reds) in a real shocker, even though Man United’s team had injury problems and fielded some of their less elite players at the start. Liverpool lost to Championship side Reading again, with a weakened team, and after being a goal ahead. Arsenal lost to PL side Stoke which was less embarrassing, but also learned a lesson of fielding a weakened side. Chelsea, Spurs, Man City and Aston Villa are left in the last 8, so there are still big clubs in the hat at this stage.

Therefore, credit to Martin O’Neill’s Aston Villa – Villa have now been rewarded with a League Cup final place vs man United, and are still in the hat for the quarter-final draw after fielding an almost 100% full strength team in the 5th round at Crystal Palace. This match was definately like a throw back to the F.A. Cup’s glory days, a team from the second tier of English football, currently struggling financially and under administration, backed with a full house crowd and amazing vocal support from both sets of fans, both fought like tigers and battled hard to a 2-2 draw, Villa rescuing themselves from a ‘Cupset’ with a late 87th minute equalizer, which had an element of controversy as the corner leading up the goal should have been called a goal-kick, leading to some post match raucousness from veteran Palace manager Neil Warnock. For the neutral this game had everything and a great atmosphere. The replay was not beneficial to Villa, meaning they must play 3 games in a week with the 3rd game being the League Cup final vs Man United and are still chasing hard for PL points to get in the top 4. However, it was beneficial to Palace, whose administrator confirmed that the Cup run, even if they should lose at Villa, combined with a couple of sales in January, will provide enough capital to keep the club afloat at least until the summer.