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Airdate: FA Cup 2013

SBS will screen the biggest match in English club football, the FA Cup Final, Live around the country this weekend.

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2013-05-09_1616SBS will screen the biggest match in English club football, the FA Cup Final, Live around the country this weekend.

The FA Cup Final showcases some of the best of English football in the world’s oldest and most prestigious domestic cup competition. This year’s final at Wembley Stadium will see Wigan Athletic take on Manchester City, who knocked out title holders Chelsea in a thrilling semi-final.

Reigning English Premier League Champion Manchester City will be looking for its second FA Cup triumph in three years, after taking home the trophy in 2011. Meanwhile Wigan Athletic will be featuring in its first ever FA Cup Final after defeating Millwall in its semi-final. Wigan will be chasing its first major honour, finishing runners up in the 2006 Football League Cup Final.

SBS’s live coverage of the 2013 FA Cup Final will be hosted by Les Murray with expert analysis from SBS Chief Football Analyst Craig Foster. Commentary will be provided by renowned English football commentator Martin Tyler.

Live 1am AEST, Sunday 12 May on SBS ONE and SBS HD and streamed live online at www.sbs.com.au/theworldgame.

David Knox blogs Eurovision for SBS.

11 Responses

  2. ‘coogeebear’ makes a fair point. The FA Cup Final is no longer the occasion it once was.

    The magic of the FA Cup has been eroded away by people who had no respect for its traditions, because they:
    Shunted the Final off to Cardiff for years during the Wembley redevelopment debacle.
    Host the semi-finals at (less than full) Wembley Stadium thus devaluing the sense of occasion of the Final.
    Replaced the Trophy itself with a replica of the 1911 version that so many great players competed for over many decades.
    Moved the kick-off time from the traditional 3pm to 5.15pm. (2.15am on Australia’s east coast) has lost at least 4 viewers in this household.

    It used to be that the Cup Final was the last game of the season, bringing down the curtain on domestic competition, not so now. The leading clubs now have bigger prizes to chase so the FA Cup has become a distraction, even an irritation for them.

    The final insult is that The FA Cup is sponsored by an alleged beer that is famous for being, well ….. ‘like making love in a canoe’.

  3. @secretsquirrel, you sure about this ” It also has the second largest attendances for any single sporting event in the world (only the AFL GF is higher) ” ? Barcelona regularly attract over 90,000 as well as college gridiron games in the USA, amongst others like NASCAR !!!

  4. The biggest match in English club football is the playoff for the Epl. How you can quote the attendances at each match compared to Wembley, which has a bigger capacity is beyond comprehension. I will give you another link supplied from an Aussie point of view.
    heraldsun.com.au/remote/check_cookie.html?url=http%3a%2f%2fwww.heraldsun.com.au%2fsport%2ffootball%2fwhy-we-wont-watch-the-fa-cup-final-this-weekend-between-manchester-city-and-wigan%2fstory-e6frfg8x-1226639408216

  5. @coogeebear – you claim that Liv v ManU is “more popular” but that viewing figures won’t back it up. I’m not sure how else you would measure popularity.

    The two Liv v ManU matches this season had attendance figures of 44,263 and 75,501. The FA Cup Final has had over 89,000 every year since the new Wembley Stadium opened in 2007. It also has the second largest attendances for any single sporting event in the world (only the AFL GF is higher). TV audiences are also much higher.

    Even the Football Association has said that attendances have been at 30-year highs for the 2012-13 FA Cup series (ref: guardian.co.uk/football/2013/apr/09/football-association-fa-cup-attendances).

    You’re simply mistaken. The FA Cup Final clearly is the biggest match in English club football.

  6. Liverpool v Man Utd is far more popular than the cup final. Viewing figures wont back it up as it is only shown on Sky
    The FA cup in general has lost it’s spark in the last 20 years since the arrival of Sky.Teams field weakend teams,sometimes even withdraw ( Man utd ) and the crowds are not what they once were by quite a bit.

  8. Some would argue that the Championship play-off final – between the two teams vying for the last promotion place to the Premier League – is a bigger game these days, but I suspect that may not have been what coogeebear was thinking of.

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