Blyth Spartans & The FA Cup Third Round
It's the Third Round of the FA Cup this weekend and, while the lowest-ranked team left in the competition has a home draw against Championship opposition, they won't be appearing live on the television this time around. Here's Tom Snee with the lowdown on Blyth Spartans, of the Northern Premier League.
You can picture exactly how it would have gone; city slickers trudging off a swish coach in a makeshift car park, finding their way to a cramped Croft Park changing room and generally not looking at all up for the game. Cut to a shot of kids in the crowd wrapped up in big coats, green and white woolly hats and clutching a trophy made out of cardboard and leftover turkey foil and waving it gladly for the camera.
Then onto a dog – possibly a Yorkshire Terrier – in a home-knitted Blyth sweater jacket, its owner clutching a polystyrene cup of non-descript brown liquid, steaming under the floodlights of a bitter Tuesday night in the North East. Classic FA Cup. Classic sports television. Only it's not happening. Once the balls are back in the velvet bag and teams who have been knocked out have worked out what they could have won, the public focus switches to the announcement of which games have been selected for television coverage.
The Third Round draw itself was actually a belter. We as consumers of football love a storyline, and there were plenty to choose from when it came to TV selections. Premier League against non-league – the stuff planners' dreams are made of – in triplicate, a replay of last season's final and the lowest ranked team left in the competition – little Blyth from the North East – at home to the big city boys from Birmingham.
In many respects, Blyth Spartans are your average everyman non-league club. This is a club with 4,000 capacity stadium which has 500 seats, climbed up through the leagues, had a bit of a blip but now getting back on track, all of which are statements which could apply to tens – if not hundreds – of semi-professional clubs up and down the country to varying extents.
They are exactly the kind of story that keeps people interested in the FA Cup. Like an ageing music hall singer, the old gal still manages to retain some allure, and can still hit the right notes once in a while, but the sparkle has gone from the eyes. The over-saturation of football on television hasn't killed the FA Cup off just yet – nor will it any time soon – but it's taken away a lot of the glamour and the fabled "magic."
Neutrals (read: non-Premier League fans) are fed up of seeing
