FA Cup final day not what it used to be

FA Cup final: Paul McGrath believes even a final with quality teams like this weekend's line-up won't be a landmark eventfor most people

Thank God for Patrick Vieira and Roy Keane. The little bit of bad blood between them makes the FA Cup final worth watching for the first time in years.

Whatever either team thinks of the FA Cup as a consolation prize at least there's enough spice and rivalry out there to make this a game you have to see.

Vieira and Roy have been at it all season. In a way they are a little bit like their teams. Chelsea's Frank Lampard and Liverpool's Steven Gerrard are the young guns in the Premiership when it comes to central midfield, but the old guys still have plenty of fight left in them. And Chelsea and Liverpool are the big winners from the season (throw in Everton and Tim Cahill too if you want), but Manchester United and Arsenal have a little kick left.

If Vieira and Keane will be looking to get the better of each other today so will Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger.

Both managers have contributed to the decline of the FA Cup and it's no longer a big deal for either club, but the rivalry between the two men means there will be a lot of passionate speeches in the dressingrooms beforehand.

The way things have changed if either side had won something already this year the players would be told to go out and enjoy the occasion.

In Cardiff, though, the thought of defeat will be killing both men.

It's more than a cup final to them. It's about pride and bragging rights and looking each other in the eye at the final whistle and knowing who's lost and who has won.

Personally, I can maybe see Arsenal winning. The heart says something different but the head says Arsenal.

As the Premiership has gone on they have looked the better of the two teams who were the old guard in the Premiership.

Arsenal have kept some sort of standard going, right through to the 7-0 defeat of Everton last week.

United have tailed away. Sometimes a team do that and it's hard to pick it all up.

It would be interesting to see what the TV figures for the game are like. There was a time, not so long ago, when the FA Cup final was a whole Saturday in front of the television.

The build-up seemed to go on for hours before you even saw a player on the pitch. Then the warm-up was televised and the crowd singing and players shaking hands with the Queen and all that. It was a massive ritual.

Now the match gets squeezed into an afternoon's TV schedule. It's not the sort of thing that anyone clears a whole day for.

Even a final with quality teams like this weekend won't be a landmark for most people.

That's a pity. When people think of the FA Cup over the last 30, 35 five years Arsenal and United are there at the great moments. Arsenal's double winning side. Charlie George lying flat on the turf. Alan Sunderland's goal right at the end of that unbelievable final in 1979. Ourselves versus Brighton and Everton in the 1980s. Cantona beating Liverpool in 1997. And so on.

There ain't much romance left, of course. Wimbledon were the last big underdog winners back in 1988 (that makes me feel old) and if Arsenal win this weekend it will mean Arsenal and United have both won the cup five times since then.

The big clubs can win the thing without even thinking about it these days.

The decline is sad for lots of reasons, but one of the main ones is that the cup final used to be a great advertisement for soccer. It was a day which drew people into the game and got them hooked. For me the first big introduction to football was in 1970 back in the Glen Sylva home in Monkstown.

That famous cup final set so many people I know on their road when it came to supporting one team or the other. If you were of a certain age you had to choose between Chelsea and Leeds.

I'd scuffed a football around the garden with the rest of the kids living there and I like it as much as anyone, but that game and the replay was the first time I'd ever actually sat down and properly watched any football match.

Me and Robert Taggart, an older friend who was living in the same circumstances as myself, watched the game together.

Robert was farther down the road than I was. He was a Chelsea supporter already. We were good friends so I became a Chelsea fan too. But for the grace of God I could be following Leeds today.

Chelsea won. David Webb's header. Eddie Gray was wonderful at Wembley in the draw but Leeds left it behind them.

I'd backed a winner. And when my mother brought me a Chelsea strip for Christmas, complete with the cool white stripe on the shorts and the white socks, it was Chelsea forever. I spent many happy hours pretending to be Peter Osgood.

Fifteen years later I won a medal on the field of play in the final of 1985. That's romance! The venue, the tradition, the dreams of everyone in professional soccer all being at the same starting gate when the draw is made.

This weekend with the Premiership dead for such a long time, the media will try to pump a little excitement into the whole thing. We'll know, though, that the European Champions League final is just around the corner and it completely overshadows Cardiff.

I wonder what the long-term effect will be. The FA Cup was a huge showcase too for English soccer worldwide. That's been lost also.

When I played we would have been aware of people around the world tuning in and experiencing the whole thing as part of a summer Saturday.

For many it was the first time they saw Manchester United or whoever they ended up following.

That's gone too. We're left with a decent final but a smaller occasion.

Alex and Arsene. Roy and Patrick. We'll tune in, but it isn't that important anymore. Not even to those four.