Confessions of a Zolaholic

As the season builds towards its exciting climax, is anyone noticing any slightly troubling behaviour patterns?

‘Addiction is the continued use of a mood altering substance or behaviour despite adverse

dependency consequences.'

The following dialogue was recorded for monitoring purposes at Zolaholics Anonymous centre for people addicted to sexy football, at a location not far from Vicarage Road, earlier today:

“Hello, my name is Ben and I’m a Zolaholic…well…it is hard for me to say, but I am here today to talk about my addiction to sexy football. It has been going on for, let me see, about 7 months now. Urr, I started watching Watford just for a bit of entertainment really. I never thought anything of it; an occasional home game followed by a trip up to Huddersfield, it all seemed pretty harmless at first.  But since that late Deeney penalty at the McAlpine, I just haven’t been able to control myself.”

“Explain what you mean.”

Is there any room for anything else?

“Well, I can’t stop thinking about football: fluid passing moves, incisive counter-attacks, one-twos, I even find Fernando Forestieri’s diving to be a thing of beauty. I’m not normally like that you see. If I see anyone from another team diving, I usually react with utter indignation, but when Fernando does it…well…the way he throws himself to the floor is endearing…majestic even.”

“OK…tell me more.”

"Nathaniel Chalobah’s drop of the shoulder to find space, Jonathan Hogg’s combative style and tireless running, Almen Abdi’s total composure and consummate passing game, Troy Deeney’s mammoth physique and unrivalled hold-up play not to mention the killer finishing of Matej Vydra. Even Lloyd Doyley is playing out of his skin.”

“All sounds good to me. What is the problem?”

"Well, it is great and all, but it is starting to take over my life. As I said, it just started like any other season, but now I have to go to every game! Now it’s every Saturday and even Tuesday nights. Driving up and down the country to places like Ipswich, Hull and I’m even planning to go to Barnsley! I’ve never wanted to go to these places in my life! I don’t even hesitate when someone asks whether I want to go to the football. I just go. It’s like I have no willpower anymore.”

“What is it that keeps you going back to it?”

“Well, there are so many things: the excitement and anticipation before the game is one reason. You walk to the stadium with a feeling of confidence, knowing that we are going to score at least one goal. I think the most addictive thing is the feeling I get when we score a goal. It’s great. It’s a shared moment when all of a sudden you can just jump up and down in absolute jubilation. Nothing else matters. Not at that moment. Then afterwards you sing about it. Singing all together in absolute joy, until you almost lose your voice! It’s not something I would normally do. For some reason once a goal goes in and everybody is up and buzzing, you suddenly don’t mind singing at the top of your voice in public. It’s liberating really. Where else do you get to unleash like that? There’s nothing else like it."

“If you enjoy it so much, why have you come to Zolaholics Anonymous?”

“Well, you also get so wrapped up in it all, you start shouting at the referees and their assistants because you think their might be some kind of conspiracy to deny you the three points for a win. You collectively insinuate that this professional doing their best to referee the game accurately has either been bribed or perhaps he doesn't have the requisite vision to be judging the game. I would never normally question any other professional about whether they know what they're talking about or not. It really isn't me!”

"It doesn’t even stop there though. It’s not just the feeling you get when you are there celebrating a goal and the troubling anger or frustration when anything goes against you to inhibit that feeling. It’s also the feeling of winning. When you win a game, you feel good and you want to go out and celebrate that too. Over the course of a few beers, you talk about the game and what happened over and over again. You talk about how each player performed and highlight particular bits that he did that you enjoyed, how you felt at the time, whether you think the tactics worked, how the opposition performed, why we were better than them; you even talk about the referee and everything he got right or wrong.”

“That sounds…slightly obsessive don’t you think?”

“That’s not the half of it! After you have well and truly discussed every minute detail that you remembered about the win, you start looking at your phones. Everyone at the table gets their phone out and starts looking at the table, the fixtures, maybe even a  betting account. You discuss how other people in the table have done, especially those around you, and even bang on about how their goal difference might affect where you will end up at the end of the season. Every week I look at the table, which has changed only a tiny bit from last week, but I find it riveting. The fixtures are the worst though.”

“Why is that?”

“The fixtures are the worst because they never change. You study the fixtures every week; who your team 

are going to be playing and who their closest rivals are going to be playing.”

“That doesn’t sound too abnormal, Ben.”

“Not at first, but you have to keep looking at them again and again. Your head is so filled with all these other football stats over the week that you mysteriously forget the fixtures! I can’t explain it. Every time you have to refresh your memory and then discuss how you think those fixtures will go based on any projected change in form resulting from this week’s performances. It’s like a merry-go-round of town names that you just cannot seem to get into your head!”

“So, to sum up, on top of spending copious amounts of money on watching the football, you are spending a lot of money travelling to god-forsaken towns you would never normally want to go to yet you are going to unusual lengths to do so even at inconvenient times. Am I right so far?

“That’s right, yes.”

“On top of that you spend your free time looking at names of towns on various web pages, sometimes in a table format, sometimes the names are opposite each other, sometimes there are numbers next to those names – correct me if I am wrong.”

“No, that’s all correct.”

“On top of that, you are aware that these players you are idolising and watching twice a week are being paid an exorbitant wage for what is essentially a 90 minute kick about and it is your obsessive behaviour and the obsessive behaviour of others that are encouraging this trend?”

“I guess so, but that doesn’t really matter as long as they keep winning though right?”

“OK, Ben, you are showing some clear signs of obsessive behaviour. I think we need…”

“Hang on a second…I haven’t finished…there’s more.”

“Really? But I think you have already told me enough to establish that you have a pretty severe case of obsessive behaviour.”

“Well…just one more thing. And it is perhaps a bit odd. I am so happy about Watford at the moment, I have even got myself an Udinese shirt. You see, our club are owned by the guys who own Udinese. At first it was just a sort of homage to the how well they are doing, but since I’ve been wearing it for away games we have won every game and haven’t even conceded an away goal. I see it as my lucky shirt.”

“OK, Ben, this has now gone beyond obsessive behaviour into full-blown addiction. I am assuming that this is affecting your life in adverse ways that you are probably not even consciously aware of. I am going to recommend that you check yourself into our rehabilitation centre as soon as possible.”

“Wait! No! But, what about the Derby match this afternoon! What about promotion!!!”

(Ben is carted off in a strait-jacket and put into immediate care).

WARNING: Too much sexy football can be addictive. Please enjoy football responsibly.

If you think you, or a friend, is struggling with addiction to sexy football, please leave your name and number and we will get back to you as soon as we can. Fans from all clubs welcome.

Loan army!!!

This week I have been writing on the backlash against Watford's recruitment policy. I am basically arguing that the money pouring in at the top of the Premier League causes a knock-on effect that puts the economic sustainability of Football League clubs under threat.  If the freedom of movement for players that the Pozzo model allows has been successful in raising the standard of football being played at Watford, without incurring huge costs that are detrimental to its future, surely the Football League should be looking to learn from this and not unthinkingly stamp out any chance of other clubs trying the same approach.

The reason why I am giving you a short synopsis is that this week's offering has has been published by Soccer Fan Base. Click here to read in full.

Spoilt child syndrome: the product of believing your own hype

Time to readjust expectations and avoid the temptation to throw a wobbly

On Friday I left Vicarage road with such a sulk on it would rival that of a 7 year-old having their chocolate biscuits confiscated by an overly diligent lunch lady. The team I had believed were going to sweep all before them with the consummate swagger of Ronnie O’Sullivan inexorably amassing a frame-winning break: although it hasn’t happened yet, you know that red will follow black until the routine clearance of the colours leads to smug placement of cue next to cushion, followed by wry smile, and, in a cheeky Essex accent, he mutters: “Right…just off for a piss…rack ‘em up.” As with Watford, win would follow win as we arrogantly dispatched the dross of the Championship to claim automatic promotion and a place in the Premier League; where our new, immensely talented squad would feel more at home. It was surely an inevitability; unfortunately not.

"Oi! Oid loik a few a them loan players oi would!"

The way in which Watford reeled in their rivals over the past few months, scoring a plethora of precision-crafted counter-attacking goals along the way, ushered-in the most exciting period of league table gazing I have ever indulged in. The rest of the league suddenly sat up and took notice. An increasing barrage of sly about “An army of foreign loanees” crept into the twitto-blogo-chatting-footy-breezosphere as – much like Ian Holloway in his post-match interview – in true childlike tantrum mode, people began wailing “It’s not fair!...They can’t do that AND win! They haven’t even paid for them! It’s just not…fair!” As if paying with promissory notes or signing up to a direct debit worth hundreds of thousands of Kuwaiti dinar, or trillions of Indian rupees, or oodles of Russian rubles, or, in Watford’s case, Italian euros over centuries, as seems to be standard practice these days, would somehow legitimise our rise up the table.

Regardless of the sniping, it felt as though Watford had become arguably the best team in the league. The only reason we were not alongside Cardiff, cantering confidently towards the Premier League, was the fact that we hardly won a game for the first two months of the season as the loan army were forced to watch videos of late 90’s football for hours on end and taught the subtleties of the meaning of the English phrase “Wing-back.”

Much to my dismay, however, the repetition of the New Year’s Day squad rotation fiasco against Bristol City last Tuesday sowed a seed of doubt in the back of my mind. Suddenly our rather short yet talismanic manager was fallible; suddenly the formerly mesmeric foreign loanees couldn’t cope with a wet and windy Tuesday night affair in Bristol; suddenly second spot was swiped from our grasp just as we stretched out our arms to seize it.

Frustration and confusion reigned: “That wasn’t supposed to happen” Confidence in the bottomless depth of our squad shattered: “Why didn’t we play our BEST players!?” With the monumental Palace clash looming ominously on the calendar it was a swift slap to the face which provoked an angry reaction that somehow insinuated that Zola had cheated us out of our eagerly anticipated prize like an Icelandic volcano had suddenly put pay to our holiday plans.

Last week’s recovery at home to Bolton somewhat steadied the ship, but I’m sure those little nervous demons still crept into the stomachs of even the most brazen supporters going into the televised super-blockbusting on Friday at Vicarage road. Which Watford would turn up? Who was going to feature in the starting line-up? Would Vydra be knackered from his midweek international exertions? Had Forestieri been told that he might have to work on a Friday?

15 minutes in to the game we thought we had our answer: Forestieri had found his way to the bench, Vydra was definitely knackered, but it didn’t matter because it was clearly the killer-hornets that had taken the field. A message was being hastily readied to sent to the rest of the league saying: “Bristol was a one-off. You can resume your sniping: two goals from two loanees with…more to follow #theornsaregoingup.”

Unfortunately, the game wasn’t killed off by half-time, the killer sting was lacking. Going into the break, despite the score line, there was still an irritatingly eyebrow-raising cacophony coming from the away end. “Do these deluded travellers not know when they’re beaten?” I thought to myself. The answer was a resounding “No!...We don’t.” As the incessant racket continued into the second half, a rejuvenated Palace started to press Watford into harried knee-jerk, disjointed football, denying us any space and time to play our pleasingly fluent yet languid passing game. The Eagles wanted the ball and, spurred on by their terrific away support, they were getting it.

The momentum of the game had changed completely and, eventually, two deserved second-half goals from Peter Ramage (former loanee) and Kevin Phillips (current loanee) delivered a second unwelcome and sobering slap to the face in the space of 10 days. This one, however, was truly a bubble-burster.

Watford are where they are in the table on merit; we are a very good Championship side who look comfortably top 6. What we are not, is a cut above the rest. At times it has felt like it – Huddersfield and Forest being the most obvious recent examples – but even during what has been a compellingly exciting run of form, we have perhaps flattered to deceive. Although there have been some fantastic performances this season, there have always been spells in most games where our rhythm has been lost.

Coupled with the occasional infuriating mistake, we can also get caught out tactically. There is evidence to suggest that teams are starting to cotton on to the fact that, if you press hard, or alternatively, invite Watford onto you, playing on the counter, there are discernible chinks in the armour. The shining armour that previously shone so brightly blinding fans into thinking it was perfect ended up raising expectations way beyond grounded reality. It was easy to think that promotion and even Premier League survival next season was not only achievable, but likely.

When you raise expectations to such a height, it is easy for fans to feel bitterly disappointed at the slightest hiccough. So disappointed you may act like a querulous child seeking to blame someone for letting you down. However, it must be remembered that this is a development season. Promotion was not even part of the plan. For now, it has to be enough that we are almost certainly going to be involved right up until the end of the season. It will be exciting, but it may well end in disappointment. The main thing is that the club is not only stable but on the rise, even if it is not as meteoric as it first appeared!

The Golden Boys: Just Like Watching Brazil?

For years it was always a pleasure to be able to sing the song “Bra-zil…it’s just like watching Brazil,” a rare treat on a surprising afternoon when Watford might, for once, give their opponents a good thrashing. But it has always been sung with tongues firmly in cheeks. This season, however, is a little different…

Whether or not the kit designers realised it at the time, the foresight to design a blue second strip, was a stroke of genius. The famous Brazilian sides of the past have always graced the pitch in vibrant yellow or their blue alternative, repeatedly giving the envious, on-looking world master classes in trickery and flair, turning heads with a dazzling array of skill, creating legendary moments that live long in the collective memory.

Not quite there yet...

Now, I am not saying the current starting line-up at Vicarage Road can be compared alongside such greats as Pele, Jarzinho, Garrincha, Ronaldo, Romario, Bebeto, Ronaldinho, Carlos Alberto, Roberto Carlos, Cafu, Zico (the list goes on). So, apart from the colour of their strip, how on earth can watching Watford be like watching the pentacampeões do mundo (five time champions of the world) I hear you say? Well, just this way: the confidence of the team, the ability to demonstrate the gulf in class between themselves and their opposition in the blink of an eye, the air of expectation amongst the fans, and the fact that sometimes it truly is a joy to watch.

This weekend’s comfortable 3-0 away victory at the City Ground was a clinical and sumptuous display of counter-attacking football of the most devastating order; an away day of the sort usually reserved for top teams.

Nottingham Forest – a side with, until Saturday, realistic play-off ambitions – were dispatched with relative ease. It was like watching an Olympic boxing challenger pulling their punches, saving themselves for the later rounds, but still landing three thunderous blows just at the required moment. The score line, although ever so slightly flattering, sent a statement to the rest of the league: “OK, so we are the division’s top scorers and now we have worked out how to keep clean sheets…bring it on.”

For the away contingent, the afternoon was spent in sheer rapturous joy, wittily inventing songs like “3-0 to the Football team,” “We’re just too good for you,” “We’re Watford FC, we play on the floor,” “Is there a fire drill?” “You might as well go home,” etc. etc. The ones that are most telling though, the ones that encapsulate the utter confidence in Watford’s strength going into the latter third of the season, are all the ones to do with going up – “Now you’re going to believe us…the ‘orns are going up,” and so they will.

Such has been the form of the Golden Boys since the beginning of November; it now almost seems an inevitability that promotion is going to happen as they inexorably close in on 2^nd spot. It is like watching Sebastien Vettel relentlessly tear through the field, after a dodgy start, chasing an unlikely podium; he has the superior engine and the skills to match, but has he left it too late?

Vydra - 5 braces in last 5 starts: makes Marlon King look tame!

The fact that Watford have drawn level with their closest rivals with 18 games to play suggests that the timing is just right. With every game, the squad appears to be refining its game, learning a little more about the system and the games of team mates, finding an extra touch of class to apply a lethal finish. Almen Abdi’s delightfully weighted chip and Matej Vydra’s clinical lob mid-way through the second half yesterday is a case in point.

A win against bottom club, Bristol City, on Tuesday will see the Hornets, if only for two days, go into second place in the division; a place they have not occupied since 23^rd February 2008, and before that 2^nd December 2000; not something that happens very often. On both of those occasions, a mid-season implosion led to a downward spiral of frustration, confusion and hopelessness for fans, swiftly followed by four seasons in the wilderness, in mid-table anonymity, also-rans occasionally flirting with idea of relegation, occasionally flirting with the idea of a play-off push; neither ever materialising.

The 2012-13 season, however, will not end the same way. It can’t possibly end the same way. There was a rather hilarious moment of realisation this weekend. A thought that sent made our company burst with laughter: "This must be what it feels like to support Man United!" 

To a casual observer this comparison may seem, again, quite ridiculous. However, what it means is that Watford at last have a team that can win games back to back; a team that approaches every game with nothing other than victory in mind; a team with a confidence that says: “We are a team going somewhere. This game is just a small step.”

The confidence at United is a product of generations of consistency and silverware, but the confidence around Watford at the moment is palpable. Watford fans for years have been used to being “a team that does well on a budget,”, “a very physical side”, who play in a “direct style”. Whereas, at this current moment in time, every game feels winnable, every game feels exciting; every game sees goals carved out with incisive passing moves and clinical finishing. So, although Watford are no samba-footed wizards, no step-over kings, to us, if only for a short while…it is just like watching Brazil.

Status-hungry chairmen: the modern face of despotism?

Nigel Adkins: the latest unwitting victim to face the firing squad

"I'm what?"

Poor Nigel…poor, poor Nigel will be the sentiment of the weekend following his surprising - or really…when you think about it, not so surprising - dismissal on Friday afternoon. The ex-Southampton hero is the latest to be summarily executed as part of the relentless purge of managers by their capricious and demanding overlords.

There have been no fewer than 29 changes of manager across the leagues so far this season, which, staggeringly, means well over a quarter of all the clubs in the football league have seen different men being pushed, or voluntarily leaving through, the revolving door of football management. Blackburn and Blackpool have been the most notable victims of the managerial merry-go-round, each having no fewer than three managers so far this season. The odds on Michael Appleton finding himself at Bolton, Burnley, or even Bury by the end of the season must be ever-shortening.

It appears that this trend towards the frenetic has only increased in pace with the influx foreign chairmen whose arena is really the cut-throat world of international business: a world where, if the “vision” of the man in charge is not realised within the strict timescale laid out at yesterday’s head-to-head mega video conference meeting, then somebody is going to take the bullet…and it isn’t going to be the man in charge.

It strikes me, with a little imagination, that parallels can be drawn between the running of a modern football club and the running of Stalinist Russia in the 1930’s, or for that matter, many despotic regimes throughout history. The manager is in the unfortunate position of being the flunky in charge of entertainment as the volatile dictator looks on without expression, never giving away the slightest hint of emotion as their expendable minions desperately scurry around, beads of sweat creeping from their temples, hoping that they have done enough to please him.

Parallels can be drawn with these infamous figures because over the course of history the most obvious route for their megalomaniacal quest for wealth, power and status was absolute rule; political control. However, my rather flippant assertion is that in the perennially mystifying age that we live in, the modern outlet for such characters is business…and now football.

"Yikes."

Despots are used to getting what they want…and fast. If somebody is not getting the desired results, or is in some way perceived to be a threat to their omnipotence, they would simply have someone else unceremoniously shoot that person in the head and bury them in a shallow ditch in a nearby forest. Thankfully, Nigel Adkins has merely lost his job, and has been allowed to keep his head by Italian banker (yes, banker with a ‘b’), Nicola Cortese. However, with a win percentage of just 45% and four defeats in his first 16 games, Rafael Benitez may not be looking in the mirror each morning with the same surety.

The rule at Chelsea is, of course, the case in point. I can just envisage an emissary being sent to the Benitez household if they ejected from the League Cup by Swansea on Wednesday night. A car with blacked out windows rolls onto the driveway of Casa Benitez, a man in dark glasses walks up to the front door and rings the bell, the door opens:

“I am sorry Señora Benitez, Rafa won’t be home for dinner tonight…”

"Bring me his head!"

Pep Guardiola’s decision to announce his move to Bayern Munich several months in advance is probably the wisest thing anyone has done in football recently. If the agreement had not been in place so early, his next few months would be spent trying to resist the generous, but calculated overtures from the Tsar of Stamford Bridge. It has probably cost him a couple of islands, some fast cars, and all the fast women his heart desires, but he probably prefers to sleep at night.

Guardiola strikes me as a man who treats his role with the gravitas with which it deserves; an attitude to his craft developed through long years at a club whose ethos will hopefully always remain unsullied by the hands of any billionaire out to make it his play thing. He seems to be the sort of man who would not compromise his philosophy and become the puppet of anyone who tries to tell him otherwise.

The decision to snub the sordid arena of world businessman one-upmanship that is the Premier League for the reassuringly efficient and well-run model that is the Bundesliga is a refreshing statement of sobriety amid the delirious casino bubble that at times loses all grip on reality. Any headline this week could have easily read: “Theo Walcott, beardless 14 year-old, accrues 3 million pounds for signing name on piece of paper with further 5 million a year to run, at pace, after a leather-bound sphere.”

"Perhaps Gianfranco will get the job done."

Unfortunatley, in England we will not see Guardiola in action. at least for some time. Instead it will be Mauricio Pochettino, speaking through a translator, as the latest baffling executive decision sucks the spirit out of a resurgent Southampton. Meanwhile, the Russian oligarch's eyes turn to Watford, and the little Italian chap doing a marvelous job there: winning over fans with a pleasing brand of football; blending exciting overseas talent with homegrown players; presenting a positive image to the media; working effectively with a board that genuinely has the best interests of the club at heart. But with Guardiola bound for Germany, the media need another target to hound relentlessly, and Zola fits the bill completely.

Is Roman thinking the same thing? Who knows. It would certainly appease fans who will have felt completely ignored in recent months, however, despots are not famed for their listening skills.  In any case...over at Vicarage Road...the muscles tighten, the hairs on the back of the neck begin to rise, "Please, Roman, no!"...let the overtures begin.

The Psychology of Expectation: The Decline and Fall of Fernando Torres

The man who once put Vidic on his backside in two rounds at Old Trafford now waits to see if he will be pushed off the cliff by a man who cost one seventh the price.

This afternoon we will find out whether the once fearful Fernando Torres is about to be pushed of the cliff by the manager who brought him to England in 2007. He was once a man who struck fear into the heart of defences across the country.

His dominant performances when leading the line for Liverpool in his early days were like watching a Thunder Cat leap, bound and slide his way, with slightly supernatural verve, past anyone who dared stand in his way.

A mixture of strong running, quick feet and the ability to finish with either foot as well as his head made him without question one of the most complete strikers in the Premier League. However, the attribute that has gone out of his game, which stands out like a sore thumb, is his loss of fight.

The young Spaniard used to leap into challenges like a pouncing lion. He looked like a boy who had been told that his mother was being held hostage back in Spain and, unless he scored a goal, she would never be returned to him. This video, hardly a montage of his finest moments, shows that this fighting spirit and the driving need to win the ball and score goals have left him.

"Demba, I don't want to play anymore!" "There, there Fernando, it's alright, I'm here now."

His past two performances, against QPR and Swansea, which have coincided with the arrival of Demba Ba, have not served to ignite this spirit either. It is as if all Torres wants is a moment away from the spotlight and so he passively awaits that blissful moment when he is nudged out of the starting line-up and eventually forgotten about.

It is like watching a man who has handed in his resignation and is working his notice. The job means nothing any more as he sits at his desk all day dreaming of his cottage in the Sierra Nevada where he will just sit, without worry, in a place where he can just be Fernando Torres the person.

This modern condition of expecting so much from, not only footballers, but people in all walks of life, serves only to increase this sense of longing for a quieter existence somewhere; a simpler life. The higher the expectations, the harder it is to exceed them, even meet them.

In the world of football, it doesn’t matter how Fernando Torres feels; only whether he scores goals. He is no longer the young whippersnapper looking to impress the boss, happy to crush his peers, looking for the next promotion. He is the lonely guy at the top thinking: how did my life become solely about this? Is it really that important to me anymore?

Indignant Chelsea fans will be out for his blood, calling for his head and whatever else unruly mobs call for when they no longer like someone. Their sense of entitlement, sickening to the majority of us – “ ’e cost ‘us’ fifty million an’ ‘e can’t be bovered”  -  cursing and swearing like it was their own money in the first place. They will be travelling up to the Britannia Stadium praying that the name they see on the back of the match day programme is Ba, and not Torres.

To be fair, Torres does not look like a man who is going to break down one of the most miserly defences in the league this year.  Ba, on the other hand, has an air of raw energy and excitement about him. He is one of only 7 premier league players to have a goal ratio that is greater than one goal every other game. Many huge names of Premier League fame cannot say the same, Torres included.

So I fully expect to see Ba start this afternoon; the decline of Fernando Torres complete, only the fall to go. To me, his career will always be a very interesting case of how the psychology of expectation can have unforeseen consequences. 

There is an element of schadenfreude involved in watching a Russian billionaire fritter away his fortune on a Spaniard who doesn't seem that bothered by it. Having seemingly lost one of the most scintillating strikers in recent memory, this, for me, is the silver lining: despite the fact that it dominates the game such a degree, money cannot always buy you everything in football. 

FA Cup 3rd Round: Best day of the footballing calendar, a distraction from the important stuff and everything in-between.

Over the course of this weekend I have come to realise that the FA Cup means many different things to many different people. To some it is the day where anything can happen, the best day in the calendar, an opportunity for a change of scenery, a break from the norm and the heavily-congested festive league deluge.

It is a day when the surviving plucky minnows who have bested several other minnows of equivalent size in the early rounds (some tiddly minnows have even circumnavigated several encounters with slightly larger fish such to get this far) get to pitch their wits against the salmon of the Championship, or, if they are extremely lucky, they might be relishing and/or quaking in their self-cleaned boots at the prospect of entering an arena against a mighty shark of the Premier League!

The excitement, of course, begins weeks in advance with the draw. It is the afternoon where generic-suited TV presenter and generic-suited ex-professional footballer put numbered balls into a pot and draw those numbered balls in a random order in a fit of extremely banal, extremely soporific television. But despite the extreme boringness of the people performing the draw, and the extreme boringness of the procession that is the draw, many of us watch on with excitement, mouths watering at the prospect of a potentially mouth-watering tie that may reinforce our belief that the FA Cup is in fact, a magic cup.

Generic-suited ex-profressional Sammy Nelson on the day he was alleged to have mixed up the number 24 and the number 25 in probably the biggest draw-day controversy in recent history.

The extremes in reaction to the draw really highlight the differences with which people view the FA Cup these days and it is those extremes I am going to focus on because it is much more fun to do so. At one extreme is the aforementioned plucky minnows sitting huddled around their black and white televisions in various garages and sheds around the country, grateful for the fact that the draw is still on terrestrial television.

Despite their surroundings these plucky chaps have had their best suits dry-cleaned for the occasion as they sit of the edges of their fold-out deck chairs, hearts pounding, fingers crossed, praying that they might fulfil their childhood dreams: a trip to a stadium filled with many more seats than they are used to, where the grass is of uniform height and combed as if it were the hair on David Cameron’s head, buildings with exotic names such as “Old Trafford,” or even better “An-field,” where the changing rooms probably even have hot showers.

Then…that moment arrives…all they can hear is the blood pumping around their brains…generic-suited ex-professional reaches into the pot of numbered balls and says “Number 1.” Generic-suited TV presenter with list helpfully clarifies that number 1 is “Manchester United”…could it be? Bu-bum, bu-bum… “Will play…”… “Number 4,271”... “Ha. That’s The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Mechanics, Plasterers and Part-time Accountants Semi-Athletic Football Club Wanderers. Well, what a big day for them!”

It is this moment that really captures the hysteria-ambivalence of the FA Cup. Later, on Sky Sports News you are treated to all the reactions of the different clubs in a round-up of champagne-popping non-plussedness. One camera shot captures an explosion of limbs belonging to mechanics, plasterers and part-time accountants vociferously celebrating the opportunity to play against real-life professional footballers. Later they will admit in interviews that it will be the greatest day of their lives bar none: more important than their wedding day, better than having kids, nothing like it, unbelievable Jeff, whilst their family look on, somewhat wounded by their comments.

By contrast, the next camera shot displays a very different scene. The scene is not a garage full of hysterical plumbers. It is a mild-mannered affair in one of Old Trafford’s several hundred conferencing facilities where Sir Alex Ferguson routinely banquets after vanquishing his enemies. Here there are no players present. They are off lying in post-match flotation tanks before being cryogenically frozen to preserve their 27 year-old ‘peak of their powers’ 0% body fat selves in stasis in preparation for their next titanic struggle with their rival continental, great white shark equivalents.

There is no jumping up and down, no hysteria. Sir Alex Ferguson offers absolutely no glimmer of emotion. He simply jots the name of the team he aims to defeat with as minimal fuss as possible and the date that he will aim to do that on into his burgeoning fixture diary, adjusts his glasses, pops in a fresh chewing gum, stands, tugs the lapels on his 25^th anniversary of being a footballing genius commemorative suit jacket, turns and leaves the room to return to the tactics wing of his success castle. He won’t even waste a thought on the minnows until the big-small, prodigious-insignificant fixture arrives on the first weekend in January. In the meantime he has several substantial Premier League fish to fry whilst accumulating as few injuries and suspensions as possible in an intensive mini-series of squad rotation Masterchef that is the Christmas period.

When the day actually arrives, for the big fish, it is a day of mild inconvenience and damage limitation. The fixture is a potential banana skin, a must avoid impending week of embarrassment, an encounter to avoid shame, ignominy and ridicule in the media, a game that might put them into the history books for all the wrong reasons.

New striker scores a brace for financial behemoths as Chelsea cruise past Premier League opponents Southampton. A day of business-like progression -  no magic, no romance, no fuss, job done.

If they are unlucky enough to have drawn an away fixture, they might be forced to play on a surface more akin to Belgium during the First World War, or the surface of the moon following a sustained meteorite shower, far-removed from the Persian rug their poor players are accustomed to.

That is always one of the most humorous and delightful aspects of the 3^rd round of the FA Cup; seeing the confused and disgruntled look on the face of a Robin Van Persie as the ball he is about to leather into the back of the net that looks like it has been borrowed from a local fishing vessel with all his might whilst uttering “Cashback” under his breath. Instead, the ball cheekily bobbles over a divot and over his million pound golden boot to reveal the look of a man thinking “That divot just cost me 10 grand!...oh well…no biggie.”

For the have-nots, it is a day of destiny! A day that could define history! At least a small chunk of the history of a small chunk of their lives, and an even smaller chunk of the history of their small club that may or may not be bankrupt by the end of the season. But on the day it feels so much more than that. It is a day on which nothing else matters. It offers the chance to bring low one of the greatest football clubs in the history of the world! A chance to test one’s mettle against the select few who have been anointed “world-class” by none other than Paul Merson.

The Macc Lads, post-giantkilling . Runaway Championship leaders defeated by mid-table conference no-hopers. This classic 'cupset' will live in the memories for perhaps up to three seasons.

It is a chance to change an entire town from a drab recession-blighted shedhole into a place of unbridled joy, of magic FA Cup ecstasy, a party town for one day. It is a chance for one moment of FA Cup glory that may be remembered by football fans up and down the country for at least a couple of seasons, one night of head-exploding joy, 2 ½ minutes on ITV’s highlights show that has been sky plussed by one of your full-time accountant mates that actually has Sky+ with the sports package. But he will never have this:  a chance of becoming an immortal, an FA Cup giant killer, the main protagonist in the hugely annoying play on words that is “a cupset” of biblical proportions, a day when hope springs eternal.

To sum up, it is the fact that the FA Cup can mean such different things to so many different fans and players that make it an interesting, entertaining and relevant competition. Regardless of the outcomes of the fixtures, it still offers opportunities for David to slay Goliath and it is them having that opportunity that is important, not whether the Champions League teams take it seriously enough, or whether people care as much about it as they used to. It is so rare to see the big teams squirming uncomfortably in their surroundings in a sort of lose-lose, do we really care? No, but in a way, yes, let’s just get through this bubble of vulnerability whilst the rest of the country revels in a sort of win-win, let’s have a bloody good day out, sing ‘til our throats are raw, put it up ‘em bubble of hopes and dreams.

When all is said and done, most of the swimmers make it through, but there are always, always and few that get caught up in the net and are devoured in a frenzied, piranha-like, non-league football feast. And for those victorious against the odds, it is a special weekend. For those defeated and humiliated at the hands of so-called ‘lesser opposition’, they can still return home with their pride slightly dented, tails between their legs, bemoaning that penalty decision, or the missed one-on-one, and once there is enough distance between themselves and the unbearably embarrassing occasion, they can console themselves with “Well…at least we can focus on the league.”