“If you look back and ask Wigan if they’d rather have won the cup or stayed in the Premier League, I think their people would have rather stayed in the Premier League.”
Unsurprisingly, David Moyes has never been one of life’s dreamers. He doesn’t believe in fairytales or romance. His tendency has always been to preach caution and prudence. A hard-nosed and dispassionate pragmatist, the West Ham manager is never in danger of getting carried away. That’s fair enough, but it’s his loss.
Ahead of tomorrow’s meeting with Wigan Athletic, Moyes suggested that the League One side would happily have traded their historic FA Cup win in favour of avoiding relegation five years ago. Leaving aside that there’s no obvious link between the two, this is a dreary and deeply flawed way of viewing things. There’s a certain logic to it but that’s not what football is about.
As Danny Blanchflower once said, ‘The game is about glory’. It’s about the occasionally misguided pursuit of success and unforgettable moments where everything falls into place. Adopting the joyless outlook of an accountant won't change that. Regardless of whatever monetary value is assigned to them, winning a trophy is worth far more than staying in the Premier League ever will be.
Nobody will ever look back wistfully at yet another season of finishing 16th in the top flight. Telling the grandchildren about helping to secure your club’s share of a broadcast rights deal for a further year will never inspire them in the same way as a medal and a Wembley win. A place in the history books and an experience to savour for the rest of your life is worth far more than the grim drudgery of simply staying afloat in the top division.
Unfortunately so many people involved in football are in danger of losing sight of this, if they haven’t already. For many, there’s no time to dream when three points are at stake. Once a source of great fun and escapism, football has become an incredibly serious business in recent years. With more money than ever before riding on the outcome of each game, we’ve forgotten what really matters.
The pressure from above – chairmen, chief executives and board members – inevitably hones in on the bottom line. Continuing to lead a lucrative existence in the top flight is the primary concern. Managers have accepted that this is the case and chosen to prioritise accordingly. Grinding away in the Premier League, with no real purpose and nothing to show for it, has become an end in itself.
The saddest part is that supporters have started to follow suit. Low crowds in the early rounds of domestic cup competitions reflect the fact that they are treated with a casual disdain by leading clubs, and many of those further down the ladder too. We’ve been repeatedly told that the Premier League and the Champions League are the only things worth caring about and now, somehow, believe it.
There’s less scope to dream of success with the vast financial disparities that exist in modern football, but that doesn’t mean we should stop doing it. David Moyes and the rest couldn’t be more wrong. Winning the FA Cup was the finest moment in Wigan’s history by a mile. Staying in the Premier League, to no doubt be relegated another day, pales in comparison. To see it any other way is to fatally misunderstand football.
