THE FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION CHALLENGE CUP

On Twitter you get all sorts of people with a plethora of views and what I have found is that when it comes to football many seem to leave their common sense and common courtesy in the metaphorical cloakroom.

Manchester City fans and Chelsea fans have quite vociferous opinions on the platform and I was struck by an assertion that Arsenal have been starved of success for two decades and will therefore celebrate anything. My response was that we have won the premier League twice and the FA Cup seven times in that time; this fact about the FA Cup unleashed hell!

"Little cups don't count"

"yeah but one of those was against Hull"

"Big clubs are only interested in the League and UCL"

"Big Club my Arse!"

"If you are satisfied with the FA Cup..."

You get the idea.

I would say that as a club we have been in the doldrums for a while but how many teams that have been struggling to be competitive at the highest level have won stuff while doing so?

There are certain other clubs defined as being big, that have one League Cup to show for the last two decades.

What had me perplexed was the perception of these New Money fans that the FA Cup was an irrelevance. The world's oldest cup competition with a show piece final at the home of football. Come the day of the Cup final I would be willing to bet that any fan of any club would love their team to be there.

There are four trophies available to the top quarter of the Premier League, the rest of the leagues, realistically, are competing for two. The FA Cup is something that, with favourable draws, is within sight for many clubs. The FA Cup has a romance that football fans find unique. The FA Cup represents the adage that every dog has its day.

I would love Arsenal to be competing for the title and European trophies every year, but we haven't been for a while (Its almost forgotten that in the season Leicester uniquely won the league, Arsenal finished second having beaten them home and away; to me that is being competitive at the highest level)

We are trying to get back to a level of competitiveness that warrants the standing of the club, not to mention the price of tickets, but while this process is taking time we have been accumulating FA Cups. I'm happy winning the FA Cup and that does not automatically correlate to me being happy with not winning the league or a European trophy.

I am, naturally cynical about Man City and Chelsea fans on social media as a good deal of them have only the new money version of their clubs to refer to but unfortunately they regularly live up to the perception of having short memories and skewed ideas of what the beautiful game is all about.

If any trophy gives us hope that football still retains its magic then its the FA Cup...and thats something you can't buy.

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