Worthless? (Worthington Cup)

Member Name: Belgian999

Product:	Worthington Cup
Date:	04/03/02 (109 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: UEFA Cup place for the winners

Disadvantages: Big clubs don't take it seriously any more

The decline in stature of the League Cup competition is England has been a drawn-out affair, but is none the less sad for that. In the last decade, the top teams in the Premiership have treated the early rounds of this cup as little more than an excuse to give the reserves a run-out in front of a few thousand fans. However, this was not always the case – the early years of the competition may have seen the likes of Rochdale reaching the final, but in the 70s and 80s especially, the League Cup gained a great deal of prestige, due in no small part to the prize of a UEFA Cup place for the winners.

My first distinct memory of the League Cup is a sweet one, as I went to Wembley in 1987 to see Arsenal beat the mighty Liverpool in the final. It was the first time that Liverpool had lost a game in which Ian Rush had scored (not that I was aware of that at the time, my Dad filled me in on the important trivia on the way home!), and watching the likes of Charlie Nicholas and Perry Groves beat one of the best teams to grace the top division is one of my earliest and most cherished footballing memories.

This season, Arsenal beat Manchester United in the same competition, and although the match was played in front of a large crowd, it featured only a handful of players who had taken part in the Premiership match between the two sides the previous week. Arsenal fielded promising youngsters such as Inamoto, Aliadiere and Pennant and their opponents did the same. While it was undeniably a valuable part of the learning curve for the younger players, I would have felt just a little bit cheated to have laid out top whack for a ticket to this most inviting of fixtures, only to see a collection of fringe players on the pitch.

Why does this happen? Manchester United were the first side to start putting out bit-part players, as they fielded a reserve side in a defeat at Port Vale a few years back. The outcry at the time was massive, with calls for them to
be fined or even banned from the competition, but more and more teams do the same each year, and the protests become more and more muted. Even Bolton Wanderers, currently battling against relegation back to the Nationwide League, fielded a second string in their tie with Tottenham, and paid the penalty as Spurs’ experienced team put them to the sword.

It seems a shame that a competition that once guaranteed large crowds, even in the early rounds, has lost so much of its glamour. Much of the blame for this can be laid at the door of those responsible for the huge influx of money from satellite TV contracts and the excessive expansion of the Champions League over the past 10 years. The big club sides want to protect their top players from burning out by playing too many games in a season (I could mention here that many non-league sides play 50-60 games a season without complaint, but that would be a wholly different argument), and prefer to concentrate on success in the Premiership, followed by European competition, with even the FA Cup relegated to third place in the list of priorities.

The League Cup is no longer seen as a worthwhile exercise, and the whole thing is one huge vicious circle – the clubs rest their star players, the fans stay away, and then the clubs tend to use the low crowds as one more reason for not putting their first XI on display. However, should a club stumble through to the latter stages, then suddenly the competition assumes more importance again – see Liverpool’s (arguably lucky) triumph over Birmingham City last year for proof of this. A derided competition was hailed as the club’s finest hour with videos, t-shirts and all sorts of merchandise released to commemorate the ‘famous’ victory.

All this strikes me as being very unfair on the smaller clubs. At least the early rounds have been reduced from two legs to a single match, but perhaps one idea would be to copy the Frenc
h formula. In the French FA Cup, the draw is made as normal, but if the teams are from different divisions, then the lower-league side automatically has home advantage, guaranteeing good gate receipts and increasing the chance of an upset. In this year’s League Cup, Arsenal were paired with Grimsby at Highbury – and only the most insane optimist would have sensed a shock there. Had the match been at Blundell Park, more people would have turned out and it would have been an entirely different proposition, and for supporters of lower division sides, a heavy defeat by a top club is no disgrace, but turning out to watch someone else’s reserves borders on the humiliating.

The whole thing smacks of hypocrisy on the part of the bigger clubs – they refuse point blank to take the competition seriously until it suits them, and then just roll out the superstars if the youngsters do well enough to get the club to the semi-final stage. They might ‘only’ be playing the likes of Hartlepool or Luton in the early stages, but in many ways Arsenal, Manchester United and others do the smaller clubs a great disservice. This is an opportunity for them to bring some money into circulation in the lower reaches of professional football, but instead they prefer to concentrate their attentions elsewhere and treat the League Cup as little more than an annoying diversion.

This probably all sounds very altruistic, but I see no reason why the League Cup competition can not continue and prosper – but only if the prize of a UEFA Cup place is retained for the winners. However, UEFA’s proposed reconstruction of this competition threatens the very existence of the League Cup, as more European games mean less midweek dates to shuffle around and fit cup games in. Many people in the media sneer at the League Cup, making easy capital of it being a worthless competition, but if clubs approached the competition in the proper spirit (and perha
ps if the French model explained above was to be followed), then there is every reason to retain this competition as a valued part of the footballing calendar.

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