This FA Cup Final just doesn’t feel right | OneFootball

This 2025 FA Cup Final just doesn’t feel right.

It is Crystal Palace v Manchester City later today and I will probably end up watching it, or there again, I might not.

I know it is well covered ground now, as to how the FA Cup Final has been messed around, compared to back in the good old days.

However, I think even more so this time, it is all a bit lost.

The FA Cup Final was always special.

After the league season was completed, the FA Cup Final was the finale of the domestic season, all eyes on this massive match at Wembley.

I know times have moved on.

Back when I was a kid in the 1970s, the only two matches that were shown live on TV every season, were England v Scotland in the home internationals and the FA Cup Final.

Now it appears you can watch pretty much any match, if you make enough effort to find a channel/stream. Even many non-league matches are now shown live. This would have been a LOL (if LOL had been invented back then) moment for me and my mates back in the 1970s, if somebody had told me in my lifetime I would have this embarrassment of ‘riches’ to watch, without even leaving the house.

In reality of course, sometimes less really is more.

I don’t want to go back to having only two live matches on TV every year but things have reached saturation point.

Look at all the choice we have now, people will say. Well, when almost all of it is a choice between something not very special and something not special at all, what kind of a choice is that?

A bit like all the TV channels in general we have to choose from now. Maybe I am just wearing rose-tinted glasses but I am convinced that despite only three channels to choose from back in the 1970s, there were far more quality TV programmes that were made back then, the vast majority actually on just one channel, BBC 1.

Anyway, I digress, the 2025 FA Cup Final.

Not only do are they playing the Wembley showpiece during the league season they couldn’t even have it at the old school 3pm kick-off time. Maybe it is an age thing, sentiment, but 3pm will always be (in my head) when football matches should kick-off, it is what I think of as kick-off time. I certainly don’t think 4.30pm feels special.

We all know that it is now Premier League and Champions League as the two big competitions, not Premier League and FA Cup.

However, it feels like this FA Cup Final has got even more squeezed by Champions League than normal.

Less than 24 hours before this 2025 FA Cup Final kicks off, there were two massive games that kicked off in the race for Champions League places.

Then within 24 hours of this 2025 FA Cup Final having its final whistle blown, another two massive matches will have kicked off in the race for Champions League places.

It has gone from there having been in the past a seriously long build up in the days leading up to the FA Cup Final, then the same afterwards as the outcome would resonate throughout England and beyond.

Now it feels like this 2025 FA Cup Final is just yet another game shoehorned into the never ending TV schedule of live football.

The 2025 FA Cup Final will still be special for Crystal Palace fans today, especially if they see their team win the club’s first ever major trophy! Whilst I am sure it will be special still, up to a point, for the Manchester City fans. At least they have sold their tickets this time I think, unlike the semi-final when 10,000+ Man City tickets went unsold.

Another example of reaching saturation point I guess the Man City fans would claim, too many trips to Wembley, too many times doing too well.

We have to move on, we need progress, we need to generate more money…

A bit like Newcastle United changing the club crest, apparently this is something else that ‘has to happen’, where the status quo is deemed not good enough.

Funnily enough, fans not given any say in any of these progressive moves.

Ahah you say, Newcastle United fans are being given a say by the club, we are even going to get to help choose what the club crest should be for the future. Although letting the fans ‘choose’ what the club crest will be, doesn’t include the option that pretty all Newcastle United fans would choose. Sticking with the status quo isn’t possible, it is now deemed not good enough, not suitable, after having existed for 37 years. Times have moved on and bizarrely, the club claim that technology hasn’t been able to keep pace when it comes to reproducing the current club crest.

No wonder us ancient 50+ year old technophobes get confused.

The technology exists to show every match in the world live on your TV, but it can’t cope with our NUFC club crest that has been used for the past 37 years without any disastrous implications.

Enjoy the game today, here’s hoping Crystal Palace fans are celebrating when the final whistle is blown. Football is at its best when it matters more to the fans supporting the winning team, than it would have done for the losers.