Time for a rethink on the FA Cup schedule

IT'S  just a liberty, really. Why can't people just leave football alone?

You used to know when you team would be playing should there be the need for them to play in an FA Cup replay.

These matches were set in stone. Ten days after the original tie and kicking off at 7.45pm.

But what's this? The BBC think they can take the oldest football competition in the world and just do what they damn well like.

Who gives them the right, that's what I want to know.

This is the people's game and they just think they can throw all the traditions out of the window just because it suits their schedules.

How dare they arrange an FA Cup replay that kicks off at the ludicrous time of 7.55pm. That's the time events get under way at Portman Road on Wednesday between Ipswich and Southampton.

It's going to know me completely out of sync if last week's match between AFC Wimbledon and Liverpool is anything to go by.

I was subjected to a ten-minute talk about the Crazy Gang of 1988 on that occasion when I should have been watching football.

The Beeb grab hold of the cup's tradition when it suits them and then cast it aside when they want Alan Shearer to hold court. So we all have to wait for them. It's a disgrace.

I just hope one team gets the job done in 90 minutes, because if it runs into the news I fancy there's going to be hell to pay which is just as well because Southampton are going to win comfortably...