Ah. ‘The magic of the cup’. That old phrase that BT Sport and BBC recycle every year at the beginning of January for FA Cup third round weekend. The weekend that used to promise so much, but now, nothing. There are a few scares along the way, and usually one or two upsets, but something is missing. Something, somewhere, is absent. It says a lot that FA Cup weekend sometimes now even gets frowned upon on the same level as the international break does – a ‘bore fest’. Reserves are fielded, crowds are low, upsets are rare and if they do it is because the minnows are playing against a team of kids that have never played together. It is not disastrous, but it is far from magical, and ‘magic of the cup’ is a phrase that has to be entered into the cliché manual, because it is dying. Sadly.
When holders United withdrew from the FA Cup, the beginning of the end for the ‘magic of the cup’
