Arsenal will have the final word this time

Charlie Whelan13 April 2012

The FA Cup Final shouldn't be played this week at all. If there was just one act designed to devalue the greatest domestic cup competition in the world, moving the Final was it.

For years this game was on the last day of the season and the Football Association didn't allow League fixtures to be played after it.

When Arsenal first won the Double in 1971, they had to play their last match of the League season at Tottenham in Cup Final week. Now the last League games are played after the Cup Final as the FA has surrendered to the Premiership.

But moving the date of the Final hasn't been the only problem - plenty of other decisions have undermined the FA Cup.

Over the years we have seen second replays abolished, semi-final replays scrapped, penalty shoot-outs introduced, the date of the third round moved to before Christmas and, most shamefully of all, Manchester United opting out in the 1999-2000 season so they could play in the FIFA Club World Championship in Brazil.

Nearly all of these changes were demanded by television but the viewing figures for last year's Final were the lowest in decades.

Tradition doesn't seem to count with television bosses yet that is why the FA Cup was always so popular.

Although there is little point in turning the clock back, the Final must be made the last game of the season again as FA chief executive Adam Crozier said it would.

What the FA needs to do to restore the Cup to its former glory is to award the fourth Champions League place to the Cup winners. It would not just make the Final more important, it would have that effect on every Cup tie and no team would dream of fielding the reserves.

If a Champions League place was at stake I have no doubt Chelsea would win the Final in Cardiff on Saturday. However, my hunch is that with the Premiership title virtually sewn up, Arsenal will lift the trophy.

They not only badly want to win the Double again, they want to make up for last year when they outplayed Liverpool but fell to the pace of Michael Owen, who scored twice in the last seven minutes.

Arsenal deserve to win, too. They play in a style unimaginable under George Graham when the fans sung with pride 1-0 to the Arsenal.

For most of the season they have played more attractive football than any other team, including Manchester United, and unlike Liverpool, have ground out results at the end of the season when it really mattered.

If Arsenal do not lose to United at Old Trafford next Wednesday they will have gone the whole of the Premiership season undefeated away from home. Anyone who does that deserves to win the Double.

Muirfield open only to privileged

You've got as much chance of playing the course yourself as I have of beating Tiger Woods.

I was there last week hoping to speak to one of the people looking after the course, but was told I couldn't because I was a journalist. The self-styled "Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers" who own the place like to keep it to themselves. One year they stopped the USPGA champion, Payne Stewart, from playing a round.

Muirfield makes Augusta, where they only let blacks join in 1990, look liberal. Women, of course, are banned from the club, though I'm told they are allowed to play the course with a man.

Muirfield's latest entry for the good PR award of the year was their decision to ban a golfer from playing there for charity.

A former policeman was part of a charitable quest to raise cash for kids dying of cancer. He wanted to tee off on every golf course in Scotland but guess which was reported to be the only one to refuse?

It was the utter contempt that this club has for common decency that led the Ryder Cup committee to choose Gleneagles as the venue for the competition in 2012. This was good news but why on earth should The Open be played there?

Millions of us who love golf just can't understand why the people who run it are so ignorant and stupid.

The other day I was banned from a clubhouse because I was wearing elasticated trousers.

Still, I suppose I had the consolation of not being barred because of my colour or gender.

It's unlikely that the golf establishment will change things much. After all, the ' home of gol f ' , S t Andrews, still doesn't allow women into its clubhouse.

Mr Plodmust get his priorities right

With nothing special planned for the last home game of the season, it was just a case of fewer beers before the game and one or two extra afterwards.

What we hadn't bargained for was Mr Plod and his mates doing what they do best - annoying decent, law-abiding citizens. You may have thought that after the Damilola Taylor fiasco, the Old Bill would want to spend as much time as possible solving street crime, but in Tottenham they decided that stopping us having the traditional pre-match pint was a more worthwhile exercise.

We were enjoying a beer in a local boozer on Tottenham High Road - as we have done for as long as I can remember - without so much as a hint of trouble, when a van-load of policemen pulled up outside. A couple of them came in, and after a few sarcastic remarks decided that as it was a few minutes before official opening time the pub should be reported to the local magistrates.

It's bad enough having to endure matches starting at inconvenient times but then to be harassed by the police as well is intolerable. I hope the Tottenham licensing authorities tell the local plod to get on with their real job - arresting criminals.

Caborn turns out to be a good sport after all

It's the first time he's agreed to talk to me since he came on to my radio show Sunday Service and fellow Standard Sport columnist Clare Balding asked him a few easy sports questions, most of which he got wrong.

He laughs about it now, which is what he should have done at the time. He wasn't laughing on Sunday, though, just gasping for breath as he completed the Sheffield half-marathon in less than two hours. Not bad going for a bloke aged 58. Even better, he raised £10,000 for charity. Well done, Richard.

Give him a break

At the start of a frame, he just smashes the balls into the reds exactly as you and I do.

Hann did not hang around at the World Championship, losing with a session to spare to England's Stephen Lee in the second round - but snooker should be welcoming such characters, not chastising them.

Long gone are those days when 18.5 million people watched the final, and that's because the game today has become too boring.

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