Sunday, October 29, 2006

The underclass

The FA is the guardian of its sport; a bastion within the world game, the genesis of the modern game even. Therefore its cup competition should be the crucible of football. This is where the magic of the cup derives.

In musical terms, the league is the rhythm section, but the cup is the melody. You won't get far without a decent groove, but you don't get the hits without the songs.

Could I find decent coverage of today's game? BBC and SKY both failed to cover the qualifying round, even Radio Oxford's usually excellent stream was sporadic. We were being written out of FA Cup history. We were the underclass; the nobodies, I was reduced to following the game through a thread on the This Is United forum; a post modern match report made up of radio listeners, text messages, calls from friends at the game and lies. Still, even their penalty was hotly disputed by the people on the forum (it's one thing disputing a decision from the Oxford Mail Stand; quite another doing it from your PC hundreds of miles away).

Still, the draw couldn't have been kinder. Despite previously claiming not to care about the cup, Wycombe away whets the appetite somewhat. Surely this is a sure shot for TV?

3 comments:

Martin B said...

I concur, this blog is superb (and has so far survived longer than the three previous OU blogs of which I'm aware, including my own poor attempts).

Keep it going, OxBlogger man!

Oxblogger said...

Thanks for the encouragement gentlemen. I'll keep on trucking.

Martin B said...

In fact, your efforts have inspired me to try and revive the Rage Online blog (probably starting next week: never do today what you can put off until tomorrow, that's my motto)