The magic of the FA Cup felt miles away from Wembley Way

Through the sheer weight of the apathy and meaninglessness, through boredom that hung on the shoulders like chainmail, it was easy to forget this match once mattered, once stopped a nation. Two houses alike in indignity met once more, without feeling, and delivered a funeral dirge to a dying world, to the FA Cup final as a competition. This was a match lacking effort and entertainment.

Of course, Wembley went through the motions, every attempt to signpost that this was An Occasion: Abide with Me, God Save the King, Hey Jude; flags and fire and brimstone. The programme cost £12. And yet the pockets of red seats peering through the blue betrayed the reality. For all you can bemoan the price of a train from Manchester, especially for the fourth consecutive year, there were just as many empty seats in the Chelsea end. And perhaps worst of all is how deeply unsurprising this was, having also been the case in the semi-finals. Magic only exists if you believe in it.

No-one was selling anything to be here, no-one hitch-hiking across England on the promise of witnessing history, no-one at risk of heartbreak. At least one of these two clubs has been in every FA Cup final since 2017, now routine and rote, an expectation to be fulfilled.

Chelsea fans even organised a pre-match protest, mistakenly believing this would be a moment of maximum impact. Around 1.30pm, 40 or so lurked and loitered next to a chain coffee shop on Wembley Way, although by the time banners were unfurled more than half had drifted to the fringes. A jovial policeman inspected one more out of curiosity than concern and deduced that “the clowns who destroyed Chelsea” being “named and shamed” was of little threat to anyone, especially when wielded by two blokes whose hearts really didn’t seem to be in it. The two dozen or so chanted “Roman Abramovich” and “Fuck off Eghbali”, sang “we don’t care about Clearlake and they don’t care about us”. Someone brought their Mum along to take pictures. It was at best cute and at worst humiliating, even as they attempted to feign mass support by holding up those meandering into the stadium.

While the billowing discontent at Stamford Bridge this season has often felt disparate and non-specific, ultimately they are railing against an absence of feeling and meaning. BlueCo’s ownership has been an exercise in alienation and dislocation, in disregarding sport’s innate humanity, in severing any semblance of connection to the squad or wider club. Chelsea have been able to waste over £1bn with a transfer policy that has failed, to lose two head coaches in a season and end up with some bloke in a tracksuit taking training, and still make it here by luck more than skill, by the whims of market forces.

If anything, this was yet another reminder that for the Premier League’s elite, consequences are limited, a system constructed with a parachute. It is two months to the day since Chelsea were fined £10.75m and handed a suspended one-year transfer ban for secret payments to agents worth £47.5m between 2011 and 2018, backhanders which helped buy Eden Hazard, Willian and David Luiz, helped build the modern club.

Meanwhile 18 months have passed since the main hearing into the charges against City concluded, more than a year since Pep Guardiola said a verdict was due “in one month” (City deny any wrongdoing). Even the cottage industry of baseless rumours has largely shuttered, reaching the desired point for everyone involved: an emotional fatigue so overwhelming that caring about whatever fudge eventually emerges will be impossible, just something else to feel nothing about, a fresh layer of apathy. Here was a reminder of how English football has lost control of itself.

Crystal Palace’s victory last year was hailed as vindication of the FA Cup’s enduring significance, yet if anything it was the exception which proved the rule. It has been swallowed by the Premier League, its only remaining meaning derived from rare novelty, without which it is somewhere between a distraction and inconvenience for the superclub class, lumped in with the League Cup as extra fixtures they could do without. Somewhere in here is just how far the elite have separated from the rest of English football, a completely different experience for fans, an irreconcilable gulf of expectation and meaning.

Chelsea are reportedly set to appoint Xabi Alonso this week, more money thrown at a problem by people who believe money solves everything. Maybe they will be back here next year, perhaps with Alonso, perhaps with an entirely new squad once more. Maybe the promised signings of “ready-made” players will fill the soft middle, solve everything, yet you suspect that until the ownership and executives understand why fans are so distanced from the club, why so many left an FA Cup final they were only trailing by one goal with five minutes to play, little will actually improve, deckchairs on the Titanic. More protest is inevitable, more banners and marches, more alienation.

More likely is that City return next year, perhaps for Pep Guardiola’s last dance, their chokehold over the competition seemingly ceaseless, having now won 22 of their past 24 matches in the competition. It feels increasingly likely there will still be no verdict, the integrity of the entire sport denigrated just a touch further by doubt, everyone involved able to feel just slightly less. And we will forget, yet again, that this once mattered.

Photograph by PA Images