Surely he's not so out of touch with reality that he can work out for himself that swearing on live television in the late afternoon isn't really on? Or is he.
While Balotelli is a very arrogant horrible person he has done more to make me chuckle in recent years than anyone else in football. Stories like the recent bullying one, breaking into a women's prison, carrying £10k on him whilst in a car crash and that hat. Simply brilliant, I hope he is here next season, great comedy character.
I consider other matches being played on Cup Final day to show a lack of respect to the competition. Why is this now done? I find it absurd to hear pundits question whether or not the cup has lost its magic when the football authorities allow this to happen. How can anything still be considered special when it is treated as such? Does anybody else feel this way?
...............................a disgruntled lover of The FA Cup
You wake up on a Saturday and say.Today is Cup Final Day.And thats it.Nothing else.Yesterday was just like another normal match.Pity because I thought the FA Cup was rightly making a bit of a comeback these last few years.
So what other games were being played between 3pm and 5.45pm in English football when the FA Cup was being played ??
There were games before and after but not during Perfick for a mad footy fan I'd rather watch blackburn v man united or b'nouth v hudders than watch the waffly build up but that build up was available There was a choice for most apart from the 8 prem and 4 play off teams fans..... Would have been nice to have been at b'mouth and struggled to watch it cos we were in the play offs but we arent
I agree with jimmymelrose, I was out yesterday, but listened on R5 in the car. It seemed that no sooner had the match finished that they were doing a special feature on Man Utd winning the Prem again. No wonder City hate them - always stealing their thunder. To be fair it's not United's fault, like them or loathe them, they still deserve the plaudits for winning the league. Just not on cup final day.
On another note, was that our Emma doing the post match interviews on R5? I only ask because whoever it was was absolutely useless. She just kept asking the same two questions to everyone, "How does it feel"? and "How important was that"? Well, here's a little clue in case you haven't worked it out after half a dozen identical responses. Everyone on the winning side feels great and everyone thinks it's important. Except Brian Kidd, who was clearly more interested in Manure winning the league than his 'own team' winning the cup.
It got me thinking though - 7 years in the Prem, dining at the top table, and we never got a sniff of a cup final. Compare that to Portsmouth, Birmingham and now Stoke. I suppose I feel a little cheated.
FA Cup Final day should be just that, FA Cup, nothing else. To cheer jimmymelrose up further next year they are going to kick off at 5.15pm or something, I suppose so they can get the other games out of the way first. It really is a disgrace. The FA are a pack of spineless gits who let the PL get away with whatever they want to.
The reason why the FA Cup and EPL matches were scheduled for the same day was down to a cock-up, it seems that no pitch can be used for two weeks prior to a Champion's League final, which is at Wembley this year. That meant that the FA Cup final had to be brought forward a week.
Back in the day the FA Cup Final was the only live domestic club game of the year.
We had our Match of the Day and Big Match highlights programmes (albeit just a couple of games each show), but the Cup Final was the only game other than Internationals where you got to watch a whole live game of football
No wonder it had a special aura.
As a kid you would look forward to it for weeks, and even if your team had long since been eliminated, you would pick a favourite and cheer them on from your sofa.
You would savour every minute of the build up
Sometimes it was the only chance you got to see these great glamour first division players over a whole game.
The players themselves would covet the chance to appear before the nations biggest sporting TV audience and maybe become legend for scoring the winning goal in the Cup Final.
After the game you would go out and replay the game with your mates in the local park or green.
You can remember every Cup Final vividly like it was part of the fabric of your growing up.
Teams would set to win the League or to win the glamour FA Cup final on a sunny afternoon in May
Now it is no longer unique.
Sky: saturation live TV; cameras at every ground for every game; the Premier League; the Champions league - all this killed the FA Cup.
Am I sad? Yes, it's like part of your childhood died.
But such is "progress" and, hey, if someone offered me this much TV soccer when I was a kid I would have thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
I didn't bother watching this year, but I did watch the Utd v. Blackburn game!
I'm not too fussed this year about seeing Premier League fixtures played on the same day as the Cup Final, owing largely to the busy schedule Wembley has with fitting in the Play-Offs and the Champions League Final but what really annoys me is playing the semi-finals there. Getting to Wembley should be the achievement of the finalists, not anyone else.
Comments
Watching it on ESPN here and faced with Gerry Francis, grey but dyed brown, 1970's mullet.
Always amazes me how some people are so clueless.
FRANCIS, SORT YOUR MULLET OUT YOU COMPLETE PR*CK !
Aside from that Baotelli is going to be one hell of a player. He is slowly maturing.
Balotelli is a great player and a real character off it, very good for the game.
soulless club oh perlease
they were getting 30k in the third tier
and managed 49k against us in a promotion match(for them) from the second tier in the early eighties, when football wasn't as 'trendy' as it is now
...............................a disgruntled lover of The FA Cup
You wake up on a Saturday and say.Today is Cup Final Day.And thats it.Nothing else.Yesterday was just like another normal match.Pity because I thought the FA Cup was rightly making a bit of a comeback these last few years.
So what other games were being played between 3pm and 5.45pm in English football when the FA Cup was being played ??
There were games before and after but not during
Perfick for a mad footy fan I'd rather watch blackburn v man united or b'nouth v hudders than watch the waffly build up but that build up was available
There was a choice for most apart from the 8 prem and 4 play off teams fans..... Would have been nice to have been at b'mouth and struggled to watch it cos we were in the play offs but we arent
Didn't we make the playoffs then?Oh Shit whose fault's that then? :-)
re balotelli's 'shit' comment.
i look forward to the same media outcry as when rooney swore down the camera.
The reason why the FA Cup and EPL matches were scheduled for the same day was down to a cock-up, it seems that no pitch can be used for two weeks prior to a Champion's League final, which is at Wembley this year. That meant that the FA Cup final had to be brought forward a week.
The FA Cup has been steadily devalued ever since Ferguson spurned it to go to South America for the World Club Championship.
In a few years it will be regarded like the Johnstones paint trophy.
Very sad for those of us of a certain age who grew up with it as the highlight of the domestic football calendar.