The young whippersnappers who run this website can patently smell the shekels in the in spending power of the Grey Pound.
They have decided it’s time to cater for the gentleman sports fan of a mature year by wheeling me out from the ‘Home for the Bewildered’.
So on that basis, it’s perhaps right and proper to kick off Fifty Shades with a hearty cheer for something else that used to be bright and shiny, but which most people think has seen better days.
Welcome back to the land of relevance, our old friend The FA Cup.
In recent years the old girl has become the Miss Havisham of football competitions, a batty old bird trying to relive the glory days before she was jilted at the altar, and took off to shut herself up, waiting in her wedding dress for some young rake to sweep her off her feet.
But last weekend she picked up her skirts and capered around like your aunt dancing to ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’ at your cousin’s wedding.
It’s at this point I should warn you that Fifty Shades will occasionally ramble off into shameless bouts of nostalgia, with finger-wagging admonishments that, “Things were better in my day.”
But this will not be one of them. There’s no need to bleat about what a great competition the FA Cup was, because it still is!
Not even I am old enough to remember the days when the FA Cup was the pre-eminent competition and the league championship an upstart competition.
Your granddads will tell you the FA Cup was the focal point of the season, not just the final, but the early rounds, while the nation grounds to a halt on a Monday lunchtime when the draw was made live on radio.
Back then, you had to close your eyes and imagine the colour of the velvet bag that muffled the click of the wooden balls as they were jiggled about before being plucked out. No plastic Tardis control module in those days.
No live games. But perhaps it was because we had to wait for the highlights on Match of the Day which enhanced the Cup’s aura. Third and fourth round ties always seemed to be played on snow-covered pitches, where inadequately shod players slid around like Torvill looking for Dean.
It’s hard to exactly pin down when the FA Cup started to slip out of the national consciousness. It will be after the formation of the Premier League in 1992, of course.
The Prem’s ravenous desire for football supremacy drove a subtle but relentless campaign that whispered in the nation’s ear that the FA Cup wasn’t that important.
To prove it was the big cheese the Premier League plonked the last day of its season after the FA Cup final, which had always been the traditional finale to the season.
Aiding and abetting in the besmirching of the FA Cup were Premier League clubs who now routinely stuck out second-string teams, although with the riches on offer for top-flight status you could hardly blame them.
Domestic knock-out competitions had rarely been seen as vital on the continent, even though UEFA had a competition specifically for cup winners. The European Cup Winners Cup which ran until 1999.
Lazio were the last winners, but Chelsea didn’t turn their noses up at the competition when they won it in 1998.
The FA Cup has slowly fought back and even – perhaps especially – the Premier League’s top dogs have decided it is a competition worth winning.
But what makes the FA Cup the competition it is, are the upsets. The power of Premier League clubs make them increasingly rare, but like that last Quality Street sweet left from Christmas, even more delicious.
Hollywood could not have scripted the fourth round weekend better, starting with Aston Villa’s exit at Millwall on Friday night. By the time we were heading to the pub on Saturday night, the heads of Norwich and QPR were on a platter thanks to giant-killers Luton and MK Dons.
Sunday became ‘Funday’ as Leeds tipped Spurs out, and it climaxed with the best of all, Oldham sending Liverpool packing.
It had all the ingredients for a tasty Cup tie and it delivered. Oldham fans must have been licking their lips at the day the Premier League Fancy Dans came to town.
Liverpool’s players would have squeezed into the shoebox-sized dressing room and walked out to find a wind whipping off Saddleworth Moor that would have had Sir Ranulph Fiennes looking for his thermals.
For all the finesse of Barcelona, and the continental flavourings of the Champions League and Premier League, a hairy-chested FA Cup tie somehow takes the biscuit.
All that was missing from the weekend was a couple of pitches so muddy that even Joey the Warhorse wouldn’t have galloped across them. Even lower league clubs these days have training grounds which mean their pitches are bowling greens compared to the ploughed fields shown on BBC archives.
Even Sir Alex Ferguson extolled the virtues of the Cup as his Manchester United team stomped all over Fulham..
He paid the competition the complement of putting out a strong side to thump Fulham and made the sort of wooing noises that old lotharios make towards widows on cruises.
Which was pretty good of him as the FA Cup Sir Alex praised to the rafter, is the same competition his team sat out of in 2000 because it suited them.
Although you would not accuse Fergie of losing his marbles, at the age of 71 he suffers from the occasional memory lapse that does Fifty Shades of May proud.
Welcome to the world where you put your slippers on the wrong feet, Sir Alex.
By John May
This photograph was provided by Jim Moran.
