The FA Cup 2014/15 thread

[Baddar]

Wonderful.

[Lineker]

BT Sport have made Bradford vs. Reading free to air.

[FLiam]

The Arsenal/United game has been moved to the Monday night at 7.45pm.

Disgusting from both the FA and BBC.

[FLiam]

These sorts of decisions baffle me. Surely someone[i/] is thinking, "well what about the fans"?

Time and time again this happens. No chance of me getting up to that one.

[EddieG]

I'm sure more Arsenal fans will travel up to Manchester than Reading fans would travel up to Bradford.

[DFF]

Do Arsenal not put coaches on for their fans?

[Matt]

It's probably upwards of 4 hours from London to Manchester or vice versa on a coach, so not only are they having to take at least a half day at work and they're not getting back until gone 2am... And that's if they don't have much travel to or from the Emirates.

Not to mention that a lot of people simply don't like going on supporters coaches because you can't drink

[Lineker]

Full blurb on what's on where, by the way...

Manchester United's FA Cup quarter-final tie with holders Arsenal will be shown live on BBC One.

The tie will be played on Monday, 9 March at 19:45 GMT.

The BBC's other live game is Tim Sherwood's Aston Villa against West Midlands rivals West Bromwich Albion at 17:30 on Saturday, 7 March.

BT Sport are showing Bradford City against Reading at 12:45 on 7 March for free and Liverpool v Blackburn Rovers on Sunday, 8 March at 16:00.

[MDK]

Freem? I love freem!

[DavidMarrio]

I would feel sympathy for Arsenal fans but the amount of times clubs from the north have to travel down for stupid kick off times in the FA Cup down south means I don't have any

It works both ways. It's always happened and always will.

Edited February 18, 2015 by DavidMarrio

[Colly]

There was a petition flying around earlier this week suggesting clubs could use a small portion of the increased tv revenue to pay for fans away travel (as Stoke do already). I'd suggest they don't even need to go that far and just reimburse travel to games moved for tv at the ridiculous short notice they are currently to allow fans to take advantage of cheaper train tickets ahead of time. Fans are utterly forgotten about in fixture selection, but the far east tv money would soon vanish when games are played in front of empty stadiums.

[Matt]

I agree with you in principle but average attendances across the 92 league teams has never been higher

[Colly]

It's a captive audience, no matter how much you're shit on you keep going to see your team. Football fans aren't going to 'strike' to send the message that this bubble only exists on the pockets of matchgoing fans, so someone needs to be fighting their corner in the governing bodies somewhere.

[FLiam]

I would feel sympathy for Arsenal fans but the amount of times clubs from the north have to travel down for stupid kick off times in the FA Cup down south means I don't have any

It works both ways. It's always happened and always will.

I get what you mean, but I don't understand why it happens at all. There's no reason not to take the supporters into account when deciding fixtures. TV audiences completely taking over.

[DavidMarrio]

It's hard cause either way someone is getting the short straw at the end of the day. If its not the Arsenal fans it could be the Reading fans or Blackburn.

Probably the best thing would have been us vs Blackburn on the Monday or the Villa/West Brom game due to distance. But that would require someone at the FA thinking logically.

I'm just hoping if we do get to the semis we don't get a stupid early kickoff time. I had to get to Anfield for half 3 in the morning to get a coach to Wembley the other year.

Edited February 18, 2015 by DavidMarrio

[Matt]

It's got very little to do with the FA. BBC and BT got to pick which games they wanted and for which of their timeslots. Now there is an argument to be made that putting any televised games on the Monday was silly but they've done that for the previous 3 rounds too

[Adam]

Quarter Finals on a Monday is silly if you ask me, there's no good reason not to do two on Saturday and the other two on Sunday.

[Matt]

I agree, particularly as the spot left is the early Sunday one which has to be better than the early Saturday one

[Matticus]

surely from a logistical stand point, they'd of had the WBA/Villa game early kick off Saturday. Local derby's usually have early kick off's to reduce pre drinking/they are only 4 miles apart. The Bradford/Reading game as the early one sucks as there is one train Reading fans can logically take, and thats at 6am and gets you there at mid day.

The Arsenal/UTD should of been on the Sunday too, with Liverpool/Blackburn on the monday night

[Colly]

Fuck that common sense bullshit.