No time for sentimental journey

Tradition provides an indelible link with sport, and especially to the English FA Cup. The sight of Gianluca Vialli with a blue carnation on his lapel opened the old memory bank. For some reason, it recalled days of being hauled around the houses of relations on a younger sibling's communion day and catching snippets of the final - in those days, Chelsea were involved in a lot of them - on one television set after another but always missing the goal.

Times have certainly changed. Instead of screening the match on Saturday, the BBC - pioneers of sport on television, but who have been left behind in recent times - had to make do with My Fair Lady; which seemed a trifle wrong on the day that the old Wembley was playing host to its last Cup final.

Funnily enough, there were precious few tears on Sky Sports about the imminent demise of a ground that was (and, for many, still is) the heart and soul of the game in this part of the world.

"They've been coming to Wembley for cup finals for 71 years . . . for some a passage to paradise, for others a journey to despair," said a far too jocular Richard Keys a few seconds after eight o'clock on Saturday morning as the satellite channel began its coverage. "The old girl is due a facelift," continued Keys, "and it's being consigned to history after this final . . . and not before time."

Keys was high up in the television studio with a backdrop of empty seats. Anyone thinking that only a mad man - or at least the ground staff and security people - would be the only one in the stadium at such an ungodly hour for a match that wouldn't be kicking off for another seven hours were swiftly proved wrong. "I'm not the only fool here," said old sparkling eyes, as if reading our minds. "Andy's here as well," he said.

There was no sentimental claptrap from Mr Gray either. "Wembley's showing signs of age," he opined, pointing out that no modern stadium would have pillars obstructing a spectator's view, as was the case in the home of English soccer.

Indeed, Keys took some delight in telling viewers that parts of the old ground were being auctioned and that Chelsea chairman Ken Bates had already purchased the alleged piece of turf behind the line where the ball apparently bounced in the 1966 World Cup final for £20,000.

"Then he's got the wrong piece of turf," said Gray, "because that ball bounced on the line . . . they've done you, Ken."

Whatever about the sentimentality of the final cup final in the old stadium, the tradition was brought home by Arsenal's captain Tony Adams - one of a bevy of players interviewed in the build-up to the match - who tends to speak a lot of sense in his old age. He told us of coming to Wembley for his first cup final in 1981 (to see his cousin Steve McKenzie play) and the effect it had had on him.

You can be sure the terrestrial channels back then didn't have the resources available to Sky for Saturday's transmission. Some 30 cameras were strategically placed around the ground, we were informed, with 30 miles of cable so that "half a billion people in 50 countries" could enjoy the occasion.

One of the guests in studio was the former Republic of Ireland captain Andy Townsend, who felt that Dennis Wise would have a big role to play. "He gets away with murder because of his size . . . and those mad eyes," quipped Andy.

Not surprisingly, Graeme Le Saux went for a Chelsea win, but Andy and the other guest in studio, Graeme Souness, both plumped for a Villa win. "I have a sneaky, sneaky feeling for Villa," said Souness, adding his death wish: "With David James to be man of the match."

Yet no end of hi-tech graphics and hours upon hours of build-up could guarantee that the match would live up to such great expectations and, over on ITV, the old smoothie himself, Des Lynam, was doing his best to generate enthusiasm for the terrestrial viewers by hyping up the game. His two sidekicks were divided about the outcome: Terry Venables went for a Villa win but Ally McCoist was putting his money on Chelsea . . . and so it was that we were whipped down to the pitch and the sight of just one Chelsea player (Wise) singing the English anthem and the rest of the team keeping their mouths firmly shut.

By half-time, the studio analysts seemed to be slightly lost for words. At one stage of his first-half commentary, Gray had said, "There's no urgency, no real tempo," of both the players and the match, and it seemed that the malaise had struck the studio guests too as they tried to figure out what was happening.

"It's not got started," was the best Souness could do of a match that was already halfway finished, adding: "Everyone's afraid to lose." And, on ITV, Venables was concurring in his more forthright way: "They've set up to stop each other playing, and they are doing it too well."

"Let's have some fun (in the second-half)," said Lynam with more than a hint of hope in his voice as they handed over to commentators Ron Atkinson and Clive Tyldesley for the restart. In fairness, Chelsea upped the ante sufficiently for the commentators to get a little more excited.

When the goal came, it proved too much for Sky's Martin Tyler who forgot to tell us who scored. Gray couldn't contain himself. "The man Graeme Souness felt might win the FA Cup for Villa fumbles the ball that he feels he should have collected," he said of David James' failure to hold the ball.

But not a mention of the foul that led to the free from which the goal arrived. Over on ITV, Big Ron was sceptical that it was a free kick at all, referring to the foul as a "slip and a slide" by the Chelsea player.

Anyone who doubted that the win meant something to Chelsea had only to look at the reaction of the players. As the champagne was sprayed around the winning dressing-room, the roars and shouts would have done justice to any county championship winning team.

Andy Townsend got it about right when he said, "World Cup winners and everything else they've done in the game, it's still a great day to come here and win this particular match."

And, suddenly, you sensed that things hadn't changed that much since the days of snatching a view of the game in one house after another and that the bottom line of victory still means just as much . . . whether the venue is Wembley, or anywhere else for that matter. Maybe the Sky guys were right not to get too sentimental about the whole thing after all.