You would be hard-pressed to find a round of fixtures in any sporting competition as evocative as the third round of the FA Cup. Over its long 150-year history, the competition has built a legacy of giantkilling drama and underdog upsets that is simply unrivalled.
This year’s third round is no different, with a tantalising draw pitting League Two Swindon Town against Manchester City, fifth tier Chesterfield away at Chelsea and sixth tier Kidderminster Harriers versus Championship Reading. The oft-referenced “magic of the FA Cup” seems in good health.
Yet of the six fixtures picked by ITV and BBC to be shown live on terrestrial TV this weekend, zero involve a non-league team and only one – Swindon vs Man City – involves a team which qualified for the round, with all others being Premier League or Championship clubs who enter at this stage by default.
Chesterfield’s trip to Stamford Bridge and Bournemouth’s visit to Yeovil Town will be available to watch on BBC iPlayer and the red button, but these both kick off at the same time as each other and Hull vs Everton and Swansea vs Southampton, matches shown on BBC One and the red button respectively.
The live terrestrial offering also includes West Ham vs Leeds, Hull City vs Everton and Manchester United vs Aston Villa, three largely inconsequential ties that are a far cry from the buccaneering Davids challenging unnerved Goliaths that make the FA Cup what it is.
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As the lowest ranked club left in the competition, Kidderminster Harriers have been drawn against Championship club Reading, with the four-tier gap between the two sides the largest in the round.
While Reading have struggled for form this season and sit 21st, Harriers sit fifth in the National League North and are on an 13-game unbeaten run, meaning there is plenty of narrative potential. Saturday’s edition of Football Focus will be broadcast from the club, but a sense of injustice remains.
“What we’ve been deprived of is the opportunity to show the world live that, pound for pound, the underdog can match or beat the opposition,” chairman Richard Lane tells i. “They are truly showing that their world is about commercial, it’s about money. This is what makes them tick in these corporations rather than them being true football people.”
He adds: “It really has shown the finger to any small club like ourselves.”
Phil Annets, FA Cup historian and author of stat bible FA Cup 150, agrees: “The magic of the FA Cup is these clubs having their moment in the limelight. It is a shame and a travesty that they’re not being highlighted in that way this year.”
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Adding to this is the £85,000 that each club involved in the televised fixtures will receive, a sum that would have a far greater impact for non-league clubs than Manchester United and Aston Villa.
It is difficult to get away from the feeling that the absence of non-league clubs from our television screens speaks to broader attitudes towards the game outside of the Football League: that the standard of football is low, that games are only watched by a man and his dog and that clubs are distinctly unprofessional – something that particularly galls Lane.
“I would love to educate these people who make the decisions to show how professional we are,” he says.
“They don’t understand that we’re not alcoholics who train for an hour or two on a Tuesday and Thursday and then go to the pub.
“It really is a desperate situation that people don’t understand at our level how hard it is, the budget we’re on and how hard these players who aren’t on a lot of money work.”
Therein lies the root of much of the concern. Denied the chance to correct popular misconceptions provided by live TV coverage, non-league remains seen as a sporting backwater – not the hotbed of skill, passion and perseverance that makes it truly special.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/34wU7W3
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