WHY SAY ANYTHING?

If a family of four, from either Manchester or Liverpool, wishes to see the Capital One Cup final at Wembley they can do so for a reasonably small fortune.

Yes folks, it is that disgraceful time of they year when the FA, for reasons known only to themselves and for a lot of money, decide that two teams and their fans, separated only by 30 miles of motorway should travel, at great expense, to London to play a game of football which could have been played a lot nearer home.

Without going into any great research I just quickly looked for match tickets and train tickets and found that for a mere £82 each return, the family can get to London. For a further £40 each, they can have a ticket to watch the match.

So, assuming that they travel to, and back from, London on the same day, eat before they leave and when they get home, thereby spending nothing more than the ticket prices, (train and match), the cost to this family will only be £488 in total.

By the time they get back to either Liverpool or Manchester they will be starving and very tired, but one of them will have seen their team lift a trophy.

When is this daylight robbery going to end? When will two London teams be told they have to play a final at Old Trafford?

This, of course, is only the beginning. Next up will be the semi-finals and final of the FA Cup, an even bigger rip-off than the Capital One final. Again, irrespective of opposition and whether or not they are from London, Northern based teams and their fans will be expected to trek down South to face a team, possibly, in their own backyard.

Firstly, this isn’t fair! Why should London fans get to watch their team in a final in London? Manchester and Liverpool fans don’t get to watch their teams in a final in Manchester or Liverpool. Why is the final still held in London when it involves a London team? What on earth possessed those idiots at the FA to drag teams and fans down to London for the semi-finals?

For me the answer is two-fold. The first part is money. As I have mentioned in earlier articles, the “New Wembley”, which is actually an ugly stadium, went well over budget so money has to be recovered in as many ways as is possible and one of the favourites has always been fleecing people from outside the capital.

The second part is the fact that the FA is run by so many megalomaniacs who think that they hold all the power in football.

England may have given the game to the world, it may not. There is NO absolute proof of this being a fact.

One thing is for sure though, and that is that when football was first played in England it was played in the NORTH, not the South. So, if England provided the game for the world, then the NORTH provided the game for the South. The South, as is always the case, takes another’s ideas and tries to improve upon them, failing the majority of the time.

On another subject, briefly, why is it that England has only hosted one World Cup? Quite simple, the rest of the world does not like the English in general and the Southern English power-brokers in particular. They don’t like dealing with them, they don’t like the thought of global tournaments in England but, most of all, they don’t like the arrogant attitude which always makes the Southern English hierarchy think that they SHOULD have everything.

This is not intended as a criticism of the good people of London themselves. I have many friends from the capital and most of them agree that the way the rest of the country is treated as far as the sporting events go, is totally unfair.

When the final of a competition is reached, just take the sensible approach. Look at the geography of the two teams and play the game at a stadium somewhere in between? Is that such a difficult concept?