FA Cup Whore

The FA Cup is the most famous domestic football competition in the world. Any club affiliated with the FA will take part in it. Of course, in practical terms, by the time the professional teams are involved, pretty much all of the amateur and semi-pro teams have been knocked out.

There is a lot of magic involved in the Cup, it still throws up shock results, as some of last weekend’s results have shown.

Reading have been drawn the 5^th round of the FA Cup against Manchester United. The tie is due to be played at Old Trafford.

Because the ticket allocation rules are different for the Cup to those for league games, this gave the opportunity for many Reading fans to go to one of football’s most famous ground. Many were making plans to travel up to Manchester to watch the game and hope that, maybe, just maybe they might just witness the Royals beating the famed Red Devils.

These plans were all shattered when some idiotic moron decided that this game ought to be televised. The result, the game has been moved to a Monday night.

And so now, away fans have the prospect of having to take the day off to see Reading play and maybe the following day as they’ll not get home ‘till late. Of course we could all see it on TV… ah, no: only those who have subscribed to ESPN. So to see Reading play, you’ve either going to lose at least a day’s leave or find yourself somewhere that will show the game.

All this to line the pockets of some inferior TV company.

What a disgrace! Even the FA cup has now been prostituted to the highest bidder and to hell with the fans…