FA Cup Finals - Abide With Me

Arsenal v Chelsea. FA Cup Final, Wembley 2020.

I was surprisingly moved by Emile Sande singing Abide With Me on the roof of Wembley. OK so this Cup Final will always be unique, hopefully, because of coronavirus and the empty stadium but Ms Sande on the roof was a stunning visualisation: everything distilled into one single event. And she sung the song beautifully.

Not that it’s fair to call it a song. It’s a hymn, at least, and the FA Cup Final Anthem. It’s not just a song. Whatever it is I was unexpectedly moved. If this was TV the screen would go all wibbly wobbly. We’d go from sharp colour digi-images to grainy black and white ones (if only due to artistic license).

And we’d be back in the early ‘70s. The first Cup Final I recall was Arsenal 3 Liverpool 1 (aet). Arsenal’s double year. Charlie George on his back. And then all the way through the decade. Doesn’t matter which one you choose. It’s not the specifics that I am relating to here but the constants: Arsenal, Fulham, Southampton, Newcastle, Leeds, Liverpool, West Ham, win, lose, replay, great game, crushing bore. None are relevant. It was always just The Cup Final.

And it was always contested by Real Men, real working class men just like my Dad and his mates with outrageous amounts of facial hair. Talking of which comb-overs were de riguer, long hair, along with the odd military haircut. They were all called Jim or Jimmy (never James) or Ron or Ronnie (never Ronald) or Mike or Micky or Bill or Billy or Charlie with a sprinkling of more prosaic monickers: Kevin, Peter, Trevor. Win or lose heroes all.

And then there was the day itself. There was almost no live football on TV – literally maybe 4 games per year on all channels - and this was on both BBC and ITV and it was on all day. BBC would have cameras on one team coach and ITV on the other. Cup Final It’s A Knockout (it didn’t matter if it was Billericay v Swanage v Solihull v Barnstaple from the Billericay Leisure Centre or Jeux Sans Frontieres from the Stockholm Ice Arena it was always essential viewing), Cup Final Mastermind, Cup Final bloody anything they could think of.

In those days I lived at 45 Quarry Park Road in Peverell and Mum ran a corner shop across the road and down about 20 yards. It was a rare Saturday that she would close up early but close up early she did on Cup Final Day. Experience had taught her that NOBODY would come in to buy ANYTHING. I’m told the streets would be deserted but never went anywhere to find out. So we would gather in our front room for the game. Pubs didn’t used to be open in the afternoon so that was never an option. The old alcoholic, Jimmy (natch), from two doors down didn’t have a TV and he’d be there too. Maybe a random mate or two of Dad’s, possibly a sibling or two and maybe a spouse. Crates of bottled Guinness, mostly, to be drunk at room temperature. And smoking. Everybody smoked constantly. I’d watch the match cross-legged sat on the floor (as the youngest it was my place) through a fug of tobacco smoke. After the match? More of the same.

And through it all there was always the “Cup Final hymn” Abide With Me sung by Tommy Steele or Bruce Forsyth or somebody and every time my Dad would shed a tear. “Get’s me every time that does.” Well it had never got me before.

Today it did.

I wish you were still here, Dad.