Our FA Cup final coverage
"They think it's all over…”
Wembley’s seven-year Cup Final itch has finally ended. Like a bunch of frazzled sixth-formers at the end of their A-levels, the BBC's football team has emerged blinking into the light, hoping the revision paid off and the examiners made some sense of our answers!
As I said in my blog last week, Saturday's broadcast was always going to be unlike any we've ever done before. Not only were we covering a showpiece football match, but also a host of ceremonials as a chapter of social - as well as sporting - history unfolded. In technical terms - and this has nothing to do with me, so it's not self-congratulatory - the occasion was a triumph for our colleagues in BBC Resources, and for our match director and executive producer and their teams.
To produce a flawless broadcast from umpteen different locations in, around and above a brand-new stadium from which we'd never previously broadcast, was remarkable. The quality of the match, and the rather unsatisfactory Cardiff-like shadow across the pitch when the sun was out, can in no way be blamed on our Resources team.
Nor can the editorial content of the programme - that's squarely down to me and the rest of the production team. And while you can categorically say that things went well technically, the beauty, or otherwise, of a programme's content is strictly in the eye of the beholder. No two people would agree entirely on the detailed content of the running order on a day like that. One person's engaging interview, thrilling music montage or loving trawl through the archive is another's hot air, thumping racket or scratchy black-and-white drivel. All we can try to do is maintain some kind of balance, as well as reacting to what's happening in and around the arena.
Balance at the average football match is mostly a case of being fair to both teams. We tried to do that by having Mark Hughes, a Cup winner with both teams, in the studio, with Peter Schmeichel and Marcel Desailly representing either club pitchside. We balanced an in-depth interview with Ronaldo with a shorter one with Frank Lampard and a pre-match tunnel interview with Jose Mourinho.
We ran two montages - one on Didier Drogba and one on Ryan Giggs - after two o'clock, and Gabby Logan interviewed Norman Whiteside and Dennis Wise in the VIP area. We even managed to run two sequences each with fans of either team outside the stadium. You may not have liked all of the above, but it was pretty balanced!
However, this was no ordinary Cup Final, so we tried to achieve another balance - between the day's game and the history and future of Wembley. We showed the two parades - Wembley legends and Cup Final greats - live and ran several nostalgia features. In particular, I was very pleased that we were able to feature a remarkable first-hand account from Dennis Higham, a 93 year-old witness to the first Wembley Cup Final in 1923, with accompanying archive footage.
It was difficult to gauge the new stadium from our subterranean broadcast area under the stadium, but it certainly looks wonderful. Adrian Chiles’ behind the scenes tour with the architect Lord Foster showed off some impressive features, while not ducking the question of why it cost so much and ended up so far behind schedule.
So to the game, which we all know is the primary reason people tune in, no how matter how much care and attention we devote to the build-up. Well, unlike last year, it wasn't a classic. In the first-half, in particular, it was a case of two outstanding teams, tired after a long season and full of respect for one another, playing a chess-like game. Just as we're not going to say England are playing wonderfully when they're clearly not, our commentators and the half-time panel rightly expressed their disappointment with the caginess on show.
That said, it got better and was never as bad as, say, the equally-hyped "Dream Final" of 1996. Just as one great Eric Cantona moment will be remembered from that game, so the best move of the match settled this game. Personally, I felt it was better it finished that way than with another penalty shoot-out, though I'm sure United fans will disagree. I'm an unashamed lover of the FA Cup and its history, and in many ways it was fitting that the two most successful domestic sides of the moment opened the new stadium.
However, I'd love to see someone unlikely win the Cup in the near future. When I was growing up, 13 different sides won the 13 Cup Finals between 1966 and 1978. No-one new has lifted the trophy since Coventry in 1987 and Wimbledon in 1988. Everton in 1995 were the last winners from outside of the Premiership's big four, the same year that Blackburn became the only team outside of the United/Arsenal/Chelsea triumvirate to lift the Premiership.
Even the League Cup is going the same way. My team Middlesbrough (four finals ago) may well be the last new name on that trophy for the foreseeable future, now that the big guns are all giving it their full attention. Maybe, with the wealth and incredible reserves of the top four, it's just not possible for anyone else to break through any more, but the romantic in me hopes to be proved wrong. Live on the BBC in May 2008!
