I’ve seen dozens of Cup Finals at Wembley.
Also two European Cup FInals & a World Cup Final.
But today I’m not in the mood and actually wondering whether I want to watch today’s game on TV.
Kroenke owns it and Wenger runs it – and I’ve had enough of both.
The owner from hell and the old spin-doctor who protects his Colney Creche?
During lunch on the patio I was thinking about my Cup Final memories.
Three stood out.
Talking to coach Don Howe in the stairwell next to the tunnel after Wimbledon sensationally beat Liverpool 1-0.
Shaking the hand of centre forward Cyrille Regis in the dressing room after Coventry beat Spurs, congratulating him on holding his team together in extra time. Athlete David Moorcroft was there, like us all, drinking champagne from a paper cup while some of the players were still singing in the bath.
MD George Curtis, a former player, said, “My job is to make sure everybody else does his job.”
The only other journo I saw in that dressing room was Steve Curry.
My strangest FA Cup Final moment came in 1997.
Just before I left home I said to Jan, “I think this is gonna be the Di Matteo Cup FInal.”
On that day I was sitting in the Overspill Press with the foreign journalists and talking to a nice Home Office guy who had ratified each application from abroad. Guessing that he didn’t know much about football, I marked his card. I told him that I’d had a feeling, an intuition that this would be the Roberto Di Matteo FA Cup Final.
Chelsea kicked off against Middlesbrough, Dennis Wise passed to Di Matteo in the centre circle and the Italian midfielder raced forward and fired a shot after 42 seconds.