The ghost of Alan Hardaker may be permitted a quiet grin of satisfaction this weekend. Hardaker was secretary of the Football League for 23 years until his death in 1980 and ruled with an iron fist inside a steel glove. The cynical view was that he had so much on his critics within the game that few dared oppose him.
Yet when, at the start of the 1960s, he produced a plan to streamline the league into five divisions of 20 teams the clubs would have none of it. However, they did seize the sop offered by Hardaker to make up for a potential shortfall in fixtures. This was a League Cup to be played in midweek under the floodlights which many clubs had recently installed.
Sixteen chairmen were against the new tournament but 31 were in favour and the inaugural competition was played in the 1960-61 season, Aston Villa winning the two-legged final by beating Rotherham United 3-2 on aggregate. Most of the members of the old First Division ignored the League Cup until it was decided to play the final as a one-off at Wembley with the winners earning a place in Europe through the Fairs Cup, provided they were a top-flight side.
For many years after that the competition continued to be regarded as a poor relation. In recent seasons, however, the FA Cup's status has declined amid the billionaire bombast of the Premier and Champions Leagues, with the leading clubs fielding the teams of odds and sods that they once put out solely for League Cup ties. Meanwhile the poor relation has acquired an added appeal of its own.
Sunday's League Cup final between Arsenal and Birmingham City will mark the 50th anniversary of the tournament which was once dubbed "Hardaker's folly". Few are expecting a classic but few ever went to a League Cup final anticipating a game to live long in the memory, which is a little unfair on a competition that could claim to have produced more memorable climaxes than the FA Cup since the final was moved to Wembley in 1967.
On that day in March Queens Park Rangers, then in the old Third Division, came from behind to beat West Bromwich Albion 3-2 with the eccentric skills of Rodney Marsh bewildering the First Division side. Two years later another Third Division team, Swindon Town, inspired by Don Rogers who scored twice in extra-time, defeated an Arsenal side that included Bob Wilson, Frank McLintock, Ian Ure, John Radford and George Armstrong.
Birmingham's supporters will be encouraged by the knowledge that the League Cup has not always been Arsenal's happiest hunting ground. In the 1988 final they were the victims of another Wembley upset when Brian Stein's last-minute goal, and his second of the match, brought Luton Town a 3-2 victory with their reserve goalkeeper, Andy Dibble, having saved a penalty while trailing 2-1 after starting in place of the injured regular, Les Sealey.
Arsène Wenger's undergraduates outplayed Chelsea for much of the 2007 final but after Didier Drogba scored what proved to be the winner six minutes from the end there was a shameful brawl which marred what had been one of the better recent encounters. Birmingham took much more credit from losing the 2001 final to Liverpool on penalties in Cardiff after matching the opposition in a 1-1 draw.
Of course there have been some dud League Cup finals. Aston Villa and Everton shared two bore-draws in 1977 before Villa won the third game 3-2, and few would have complained then if the original non-event had been settled by a shoot-out. Yet generally the good games have outweighed the bad and one of the best exhibitions of football to win a final was produced by Maurice Evans's Oxford United team when they beat Jim Smith's QPR 3-0 at Wembley in 1986.
For the clubs an attraction of the League Cup is that it gets itself out of the way in good time for the finalists to concentrate on other things. Arsenal may be preoccupied with the need to maintain their close pursuit of Manchester United at the top of the Premier League while preparing to hold their narrow lead over Barcelona when they return to the Camp Nou in the Champions League, and Birmingham's priority is to avoid relegation. But if both can concentrate on winning something Wembley may get another act which the FA Cup final is finding it increasingly hard to follow.
Source: David Lacey, The Guardian on 25 Feb 11
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