Enjoy the FA Cup while you can

The message to football fans, as Torquay United prepare to meet Hungerford Town in the FA Cup 3rd Qualifying Round at Plainmoor on Saturday, is ‘Enjoy It While You Can!’
There’s a good chance that the famous old competition is about to undergo a Premier League-led overhaul which will end replays, see many rounds played on midweek nights and even the Final itself squeezed into a normal league weekend.
And the new-look Cup could be in force next season.
Talks are currently going on between the Premier League and the FA, and it seems that the FA are prepared to hand over the running of their flagship 152-year-old competition to the ‘big boys’, in return for a cash payment for ‘grassroots’ football.
Terrestrial TV coverage by the BBC and ITV is also in doubt.
It’s all being driven by leading PL clubs under increasing calendar pressures, worsened by UEFA who are expanding their Champions League to ten-match group stages in 2024-2025.
The EFL and lower divisions, like Torquay’s National League, still treasure the Cup for all its traditional values, the upsets and the chance to earn life-changing extra revenue.
But they are likely to be overruled.
Gulls manager Gary Johnson says: “Too many people want to change the Cup, but the only changes they should make, they’re not making – like the number of subs we’re allowed.
“I’m a bit of a traditionalist, but the Cup has been watered down, because the Premier League clubs seem to have other priorities.”
After blowing a chance to go top of the NL South table at Hemel Hempstead Town last weekend, the Gulls can take their Cup prizemoney to £9,000 if they beat Southern League Hungerford.
Six minutes from time at Hemel, United led 2-1, through goals by Will Jenkins Davies and Ross Marshall, and topped the ‘virtual’ table.
But they then conceded twice in two minutes, lost 3-2 and dropped to sixth place, overtaken by Westcountry rivals Yeovil Town and Taunton Town in the process.
They need to put the Hemel setback behind them quickly and convincingly against Hungerford, that tie following a Bayside Graphics Devon Bowl 1st Round match at Ivybridge Town last night (Tues).
Twenty-four National League sides will enter Monday’s Cup draw, including crisis-club Southend United, who are due to face yet another High Court winding-up order next midweek.