WHAT RUBBISH, READING
HAVE you ever sat at the bus-stop and watched a bag-lady shuffle
past you in the mid-morning rain?
By Iain Macintosh
24 February 2007
HAVE you ever sat at the bus-stop and watched a bag-lady shuffle
past you in the mid-morning rain?
Have you looked on in horror as she mumbled incoherently at you
before pressing on through the wet streets? Have you ever stopped
to wonder what she wanted to be when she was a little girl?
Something must have happened to turn that woman onto the
streets.
Maybe it was alcoholism, maybe it was a family that just didn't
care anymore. It's difficult to tell.
For the FA Cup, it's quite easy. It was clearly Reading's
fault.
The FA Cup used to be the finest cup competition in world football.
It's unique because it's entirely unseeded and it's open to every
single football club in England, from the lowliest village team to
cash-drunk Chelsea.
For the smaller clubs, it was a shot at greatness, a chance to
humiliate the big boys. For football's aristocracy it was a chance
to deliver glory to the fans.
Not any more. Reading's decision to play a weakened side against
Manchester United at Old Trafford has made a mockery of everything
the competition was supposed to stand for.
I can just about understand a relegation-threatened side saving
themselves for a dogfight, but Reading? Reading?
What on earth was the intention of playing the reserves?
They're not saving players for a relegation battle, they're not
mounting a push for the title and, unless I'm seriously mistaken,
they haven't been ravaged by a gruelling Champions League
campaign.
Reading have been a revelation in the Premiership this season.
Their squad of battle-scarred journeymen and hungry youngsters have
caused the established sides all kinds of problems this
season.
And Steve Coppell should be a nailed-on certainty for Manager of
the Year for the work he's done there.
So why did he withdraw so many of his key players before a clash
with Manchester United?
The argument is that Reading need to preserve their squad for the
league.
Really? What would you rather have if you were a Reading fan - a
glorious win at Old Trafford that you could wax lyrical about for
years to come, or the pleasure of finishing seventh instead of
ninth?
BRIEF RUN
A brief run in the pointless and uninspiring Uefa Cup or the memory
of turning over one of the world's best teams on their own
turf?
As it was, Reading's reserves held the league leaders to a credible
draw, which rather begs the question: What could they have done
with a full strength team on the pitch?
Could they have won the game? We'll never know now.
Reading's dismissal of the FA Cup is symptomatic of everything
that's gone wrong with English football in recent years.
It's not just Reading, though given their safe position in the
league their behaviour is the most surprising.
Scores of clubs have weakened their line-ups for the FA Cup. We've
placed too much emphasis on the league and not enough on what makes
sport so desperately addictive: The quest for glory.
Since when did making money become more important than actually
winning something? We reward the failure of fourth place in the
league with a chance to make a fortune at the cash-trough of the
so-called Champions League.
The enormous and unbalanced TV revenues mean that the difference
between 17th and 18th is now the difference between fiscal
stability and a financial apocalypse.
When a club like Reading looks at the proudest competition in the
history of club football and says, 'No thanks', it should ring out
like an alarm bell throughout football.
What right do Reading have to dismiss it as a mere trinket?
There is only one way to save the FA Cup from an uncertain future,
wandering about obscurely like a rain-soaked bag-lady.
Take that Champions League place away
from whichever one of the super-rich Big Four that drops away from
the title race and give it to the FA Cup winners.
If Reading had a chance of breaking into the European elite, do you
think they'd have played their reserves?
If a place at the feeding frenzy was at stake, do you think the
stadiums would be half empty for cup games?
Football can take Reading's attempted capitulation in one of two
ways.
It can heed the warning and take urgent steps to sanctify a
competition that was once the envy of the world. Or it can turn its
face to the wall and ignore it for another year.
Don't hold your breath waiting for change. This is the English FA,
after all.
# The writer is a freelancer based in the UK. He has written for
many publications, including FourFourTwo, Shoot Monthly and The
Irish Examiner.
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/printfriendly/0,4139,123730,00.html
Maybe this column got printed elsewhere lah. 
