ONE of the most overworked cliches in sport, or at least in football, is the dreaded 'Magic of the FA Cup' line which is trotted out whenever a 'small' club beats a 'bigger' club.
For those of us who support a club which we don't consider small, but which is not it in the Premier League, that term can be rather offensive. Except when we knock four past Derby. of the Premier League, and now face Portsmouth in the next round.
But on Saturday, nowhere was the line about the magic of this tournament trotted out more than on the BBC, which absolutley loved the fact that Havant & Waterlooville (surely now renamed either 'Havant & Waterlooville of the non league' or 'non league Havant & Waterlooville) gave Liverpool a real fright, and a great fight.
The BBC likes to perpetuate the myth that the FA Cup really belong with it because it knows how to treat it, knows how to doff a cap to its history, and is the televisual guardian for ensuring the magic remains.
Which explains why, instead of choosing Liverpool v Havant & Waterlooville, a fixture which surely encapsulates the notion of the magic of the cup, it instead opted to show Wigan v Cheslea.
Put it another way: Given the choice, the BBC didn't opt to show an FA Cup game which realistically will never be repeated, because it instead wanted to show a fixture will be played out twice during the regular Premier League season.
Something is not right about this. The BBC had its big guns at this game, leaving a distinctly B team (but good all the same) to do main Match of the Day. FA Cup Match of the Day is special, because it is one of the rare occasions that you will see the likes of Preston, Huddersfield, Havant & Waterlooville and so on getting the full MOTD treatment. It means a lot to a lot of people. Yet the real stars of MOTD, Linker, Lawrenson and Hanson, aren't there because the BBC has got far too excited at the prospect of showing a full Premier League fixture instead.
So we ended up with a rather dull and rather predictable victory for Chelsea getting a full show on the Beeb - which incidentially proved it is much better at highlights shows than it is, when compared to Sky, at doing live matches - while the real action, Liverpool's battle against the non-leaguers, and Preston's defeat of Derby - get hidden away on a Match of the Day which the BBC doesn't think is worth of its A Team.
Too much to expect the BBC to have its stars working long days on FA Cup weekends? Not if the magic of the FA Cup really mattered to them, it wouldn't.
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