Paul McGrath bemoans the relentless decline of a once-great competition

This should be a big, big soccer weekend, but instead it has the feel of a short break. The FA Cup, which not so long ago was a great jewel in the English game, means virtually nothing now. The semi-finals take place today and tomorrow. There's no buzz or hype around.

When I went to Manchester United in the early 1980s and right through to almost the end of my career, the cup was behind the league in terms of what a club wanted to win in a season - but it was just behind the league.

If a team won both trophies in the same year, they were transformed into legends. Double winners! The FA Cup was a massive, massive deal.

I don't know how the cup managed to lose its glory so fast. Now it must rank somewhere a little below where the old League Cup used to be. None of the four teams playing this weekend will consider the season a success if they end up with just the FA Cup in the cabinet. An appearance in the final is a nice day out for the fans and it's always smart to keep the fans happy at the end of a season, but that's all it means.

It seems even more cruel on fans of the cup to be playing the semi-finals at the end of a big Champions League week.

The success of the Champions League and its financial value to clubs means if you offered any club in England fourth place in the league or an FA Cup win they wouldn't think for a second before taking the Premiership spot and ringing their finance director with the good news.

The first final I had experience of was the famous 1983 final between United and Brighton. I got into the team a few times on the way to Wembley but scored an own goal in the semi-final, which put an end to any thoughts of playing on the day.

Still, I remember the week vividly. We were under Big Ron Atkinson, who was a media addict, and the week of the cup final was like one long splurge for Ron. It was as if the media were living with us in the hotel for the whole week.

I knew early in the week that I wouldn't be playing, but the final humiliation came on the day of the final itself. Ron had arranged for so many television people to come on the bus with us to Wembley that there wasn't room for all the players on the bus. Myself, Lawrie Cunningham and three others all had to follow behind the bus in a big black car. That was my introduction to Wembley - driving in behind the Big Ron Roadshow.

Brighton should have beaten us that day. They missed a sitter towards the end and we won the replay comfortably. There was romance in the competition then, and if you were a fan of a club like Brighton the cup was the best and most realistic chance of glory you had every year.

Football changed though and as the big clubs got richer their squads got bigger. Lads who have been slogging through the league and through Europe don't have to play in muddy cup games. The best of the reserves go out try to prove a point. They're usually brilliant young players being given a bit of experience.

The big clubs don't mind using the FA Cup as a testing ground and that belittles it even more. So even though it means a lot less to the big clubs they still win the competition. Since Wimbledon's famous win in 1988 United have won the cup five times, Arsenal have four, Liverpool have three, Chelsea have two and Spurs and Everton have one apiece. There's not much romance there.

I think for the diehard soccer fan something has been lost. Unless you are top four in the Premiership and looking at Europe, you don't exist really. Football by and large has become all about commercialism. The genuine passion that fed off the FA Cup, that's gone missing.

I remember us travelling to Bournemouth for a cup game and getting knocked out. That experience every year of going to some club you were expected to wipe the floor with and knowing the game was the centre of the other lads' season and they were going all out to beat you - there was great excitement in that.

You knew every neutral was against you. Everyone wanted an upset. It was 90 minutes of football and you could come away humiliated.

I got back to Wembley and won a medal on the field of play in 1985. Cup finals in those days were usually memorable for some reason or another and that one stood out for Kevin Moran becoming the first player to get sent off in a Wembley Final.

My fault partly. I played the bad back-pass that meant he had to go and tackle Peter Reid in the first place. If you watch the video of the celebrations at the end I'm keeping well out of Kevin's way just in case he was expecting me to hand over my medal.

It's strange looking back on those days with the club to think that when Manchester United went off to Brazil in January 2000 instead of defending the cup, they killed the competition off finally. The cup had been in trouble for years, but that was the final nail in the coffin.

The FA and the media will try to blow a little bit of life into it, especially around the week of the final, but it's not the same anymore. How many ordinary people build an entire Saturday in May around watching the FA Cup final anymore? There was a time when millions of people all over the world would be planning on making that Saturday all about the FA Cup.

For what it's worth, I think Manchester United will play Arsenal in the final. Those two teams have a big performance left in them and winning the cup might put a little gloss on bad seasons for both of them. It will be a sideshow though, the last of the Alex Ferguson versus Arsene Wenger business for this season. Having an English side in the Champions League final will be a far bigger deal.

The pity is that if there's any romance left this year it is Alan Shearer playing for Newcastle, his home club and a great old cup side, or Sparky doing his best to turn Blackburn into a decent side again. Those guys could use the day out and the bit of silverware.

Football's not like that though. No romance left.