The FA Cup’s fading glory means that the ‘double’ isn’t as revered as it used to be in England
By Rory Smith
By the time Alex Ferguson sat down, late in 1999, to compose the first of his several memoirs, he had already accumulated a slew of honours. Championships in his native Scotland and in England. An assortment of cups, at home and abroad. And his most recent, most treasured: a long-awaited victory in the Champions League. As he cast back through his career, though, one evening stood out above all the others. Ferguson recalled Manchester United’s party on May 14, 1994, as “one of the best occasions I have known.” With good reason, too: That was the day United, and Ferguson, had done what only the truly great teams did. They had won the Double.
For much of the 20th century, that phrase — the Double, always with a capital D — carried a special weight in English football. Every fan could recite the names of the three teams that had done it between the end of the Victorian era and the start of the Ferguson age: Tottenham Hotspur in 1961; Arsenal in 1972; the Liverpool side of 1986.
It guaranteed, in effect, a form of immortality; even Ferguson, relentlessly focused on what tomorrow might bring, forever scornful of yesterday, recognised that. His first Double, he wrote, was “unforgettable.” Jim Beglin, a member of the Liverpool team that won both league and cup in 1986, remembers the build-up to that year’s FA Cup final as “bigger than the build-up to the European Cup final the year before.” Even to a group of players who might have grown fat on success — Liverpool had won nine titles in the previous 14 years — the Double carried a particular resonance.
The testimony of his captain, Alan Hansen, bears him out. Hansen won eight championships and three European Cups at Liverpool; he had, by his own admission, grown used to parading around the city from the vantage point of an open-top bus. Yet even he described doing the Double as “one of the highlights of my life.” Yet the achievement no longer conjures the reverence it once did.
It is telling, for example, that Pep Guardiola, the Manchester City manager, was asked more than once during his blistering start to the season whether he thought his team could win a “quadruple” of all three English tournaments and the Champions League. Two, it seems, is no longer enough. To former United player Gary Pallister, the explanation for that lies in the changing dynamics of the modern game. “The FA Cup final was always special because, in England, it was the only live game on television,” he said. “Now, there is live football virtually every day.” The FA Cup always shone brighter than everything else; now, it is lost amid the endless halogen glare.
The primacy of the Premier League has had an effect, too, he said. “Managers take liberties in the Cup,” Pallister said, sending out weakened teams, packed with fringe players and youngsters, preserving their most potent weapons for the league, where all the money and the kudos reside. And then there is Europe. “Before the 1990s, there was only one team in the Champions League,” he said. “Now it’s four, and that’s where their focus is.”
There is, though, an added factor. From 1900 to 1993, only three seasons ended with a Double. From 1994 to 2002, five did: Manchester United in 1994, 1996 and 1999, and Arsenal in 1998 and 2002. It is a pattern that has been repeated across Europe: There have been 11 Doubles in Germany this century, and three each in Spain and Italy since 2009.
The familiarity has bred contempt. Winning the Double has become too humdrum to be exclusive. Instead, the Treble — throwing in the Champions League for good measure, a nod to the sport’s growing internationalism — has become the yardstick for greatness.
By the time Alex Ferguson sat down, late in 1999, to compose the first of his several memoirs, he had already accumulated a slew of honours. Championships in his native Scotland and in England. An assortment of cups, at home and abroad. And his most recent, most treasured: a long-awaited victory in the Champions League. As he cast back through his career, though, one evening stood out above all the others. Ferguson recalled Manchester United’s party on May 14, 1994, as “one of the best occasions I have known.” With good reason, too: That was the day United, and Ferguson, had done what only the truly great teams did. They had won the Double.
For much of the 20th century, that phrase — the Double, always with a capital D — carried a special weight in English football. Every fan could recite the names of the three teams that had done it between the end of the Victorian era and the start of the Ferguson age: Tottenham Hotspur in 1961; Arsenal in 1972; the Liverpool side of 1986.
It guaranteed, in effect, a form of immortality; even Ferguson, relentlessly focused on what tomorrow might bring, forever scornful of yesterday, recognised that. His first Double, he wrote, was “unforgettable.” Jim Beglin, a member of the Liverpool team that won both league and cup in 1986, remembers the build-up to that year’s FA Cup final as “bigger than the build-up to the European Cup final the year before.” Even to a group of players who might have grown fat on success — Liverpool had won nine titles in the previous 14 years — the Double carried a particular resonance.
The testimony of his captain, Alan Hansen, bears him out. Hansen won eight championships and three European Cups at Liverpool; he had, by his own admission, grown used to parading around the city from the vantage point of an open-top bus. Yet even he described doing the Double as “one of the highlights of my life.” Yet the achievement no longer conjures the reverence it once did.
It is telling, for example, that Pep Guardiola, the Manchester City manager, was asked more than once during his blistering start to the season whether he thought his team could win a “quadruple” of all three English tournaments and the Champions League. Two, it seems, is no longer enough. To former United player Gary Pallister, the explanation for that lies in the changing dynamics of the modern game. “The FA Cup final was always special because, in England, it was the only live game on television,” he said. “Now, there is live football virtually every day.” The FA Cup always shone brighter than everything else; now, it is lost amid the endless halogen glare.
The primacy of the Premier League has had an effect, too, he said. “Managers take liberties in the Cup,” Pallister said, sending out weakened teams, packed with fringe players and youngsters, preserving their most potent weapons for the league, where all the money and the kudos reside. And then there is Europe. “Before the 1990s, there was only one team in the Champions League,” he said. “Now it’s four, and that’s where their focus is.”
There is, though, an added factor. From 1900 to 1993, only three seasons ended with a Double. From 1994 to 2002, five did: Manchester United in 1994, 1996 and 1999, and Arsenal in 1998 and 2002. It is a pattern that has been repeated across Europe: There have been 11 Doubles in Germany this century, and three each in Spain and Italy since 2009.
The familiarity has bred contempt. Winning the Double has become too humdrum to be exclusive. Instead, the Treble — throwing in the Champions League for good measure, a nod to the sport’s growing internationalism — has become the yardstick for greatness.
