Cup Really Kafkaesque!

Here is more of my ongoing investigation into why the Somerset Premier Cup continues to be played even though no one wants to play in it (If you have not you would probably be best off reading my previous posts entitled Cup Kafkaesque and The Blue Blazers Speak first).

After Somerset FA Chief Executive Jonathan Pike's surprising response where he implied that the Somerset FA puts on the Somerset Premier Cup only because they are forced to by the FA, I sent him another email just to definitely make sure this is what he meant. Here was his response:

Nedved

I am sorry if I gave the impression that we only run the competition because we have to. While I would readily admit that some clubs, fans do not particularly like the competition or see its relevance, there are a number of people who do like the competition and look forward to it. Although some attendances can be poor, we also have matches where attendances match or even exceed average home gates, I believe there were a couple of hundred at Bridgwater on Tuesday evening, while in the past we have had large gates, for instance 2 season ago Frome had over 700 for their home tie against Yeovil. We also tend to see larger crowds in the later rounds, the final last season between Paulton and Frome attracted almost 600 people, which was probably one of the larger crowd either side played in front of last season. So I think there is an appetite for the competition, although as mentioned yesterday I certainly don’t think it is universal. I also believe that, certainly in the final, the teams want to win, and the last two beaten finalist have not shown the attitude that it was only another game and seemed genuinely disappointed to have lost, what is after all a final and have runners up instead of winners medals.

While the competition is mandatory for FA Cup/Vase entry, this is not the reason why SFA run it. We do value it as a competition and do not foresee discontinuing the competition in the future.

Regards

Jon Pike

Chief Executive

Okay, so potentially the Somerset Premier Cup has some value to someone, although saying that the teams in the final played to win is hardly strong proof that any clubs value the overall tournament. Give a trophyless club the chance at some silverware at the close of a season and there will be few that don't put in the effort. The inconvenience and bother of the cup is really demonstrated in the earlier rounds when managers treat the games as unwanted friendlies. I cannot fault Mr Pike for his responsiveness, however, so I wrote him back again.

Hi again Mr Pike,

Thanks for replying again. I can see now that I misunderstood your first email, but I still don't understand your position. I suppose it is possible that some clubs do value the Somerset Premier Cup, but as you readily admit many clubs and fans see it as a burden and an inconvenience. For those that do value the Cup it must be really annoying if many of the entrants are participating half-heartedly and against their will. Surely this can't be a situation that you approve of.

Why not make it optional? I know that this is an FA issue and is not within your remit, but would you support a movement to make county cups something clubs could chose to decline without jeopardising their entrance into the national FA competitions? I think this would be the best outcome for everyone involved.

Thanks,

Nedved

A response to this arrived in my inbox yesterday evening (he must be a pretty dutiful chap to be answering emails to the public at 7:20 pm!). Despite his dedication, though, I am now much more confused than when I started out.

As mentioned previously the position of the County FA is to support the premier cup, we value it as one of our competitions. Obviously clubs may propose rule changes, some of which are not supported by the county association, that is their right to do so and ultimately is subject to the will of the majority at the AGM where it would be debated

Jon Pike

Chief Executive

This has turned out to be even more Kafkaesque than I expected. As far as I can tell the Somerset FA's position on the Somerset Premier Cup is thus:

We want to keep it because we (the Somerset FA) value it. We value it even though we know most clubs don't like it because it is possible that some clubs might like it (at least if they are in with a chance to win it). Because some clubs like it, at least some of the time, we are willing to force all clubs in the county to participate even if they don't want to. If anyone tries to stop the competition we will not support them, and they will need to go through some serious bureaucratic hoops to do so.

That's just my synopsis of the three letters, but it is the sort of justification that any Whitehall mandarin would recognise as his own.

He does not say so explicitly, but I get the feeling Mr Pike would prefer me not to write to him a fourth time. He has been very indulgent so far, so I don't think I'll pester him any further. Instead I think I shall try the FA itself, since, according to Mr Pike, they are the ones who really decide whether or not county tournaments are held. Let's hope the folks at Soho Square are equally as forthcoming.

Kafkaesque: \käf-kə-esk\, adjective 1. of, relating to, or suggestive of Franz Kafka or his writings; 2. having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality

City Wins Its Freedom Through Defeat

Considering what low esteem I have for the Somerset Premier Cup as a tournament, it might surprise people to know that I was desperate to attend Tuesday night's match against Brigdwater Town. It was a meaningless game in a meaningless competition, but it was precisely the absurdity of the match that appealed to me. Bath City are my team, and if they have to drag themselves down into the Mendips on a Tuesday evening to play a match they would rather not win, I want to be there to see it. I can't really explain it any more than that. Perhaps I am just stupid.

Perhaps stupid, but not as stupid as I had been the previous year when City were drawn against Street (yes, there is a town in Somerset called 'Street'). That match had been my first ever proper (well, sort of) match as an 'away' fan and I set out with plenty of time so that I could arrive early and soak up the atmosphere (well, I had thought there would be atmosphere). I arrived in Street at a quarter to seven, but then spent the next two hours driving around the town looking for the ground. I called the club office several times, only to get directions that made me even more lost. Finally I got so desperate that I swallowed my male pride and asked a local for directions. Again, this just sent me around the same roads I had already explored recently. After a last desperate call to the club office I finally found it, or rather I realised I had been driving past it all along. The club, in its wisdom, had decided to position their entrance sign so as to be in total darkness after dusk. Because I ended up arriving just before halftime the man at the turnstile took pity on me and offered to let me pay only half price. I, rather churlishly, told him I would pay full price if they would use the extra money to buy a light bulb for the entrance.

Bridgwater, it turns out, is a half hour farther away from Bath than Street. I was worried about having a similar experience. After bundling my colleagues out of our office a minute after closing time and gathering a sheaf of Google maps I had printed previously, I pointed the Nedvedmobile south and set off. I did drive past the Bridgwater ground on the first attempt, but eventually I got close. The fact that there was no visible entrance sign for the ground at night did not throw me this time. I tried every entrance in the vicinity of where the map said it should be. After a detour through a local college and a rugby ground I found the right place. I jumped out of my car and made it inside just before kickoff. Victory!

Just after passing through the turnstile I had a chance to buy what turned out to be a very entertaining program. At forty-eight pages it was a much heftier volume than one would normally expect for a meaningless cup match. The inside was not just a series of adverts, either. There are five full pages on Bath City (including a match report from the Newport County match last Saturday) full accounts of Bridgwater's league and FA Cup progress so far, two collumns written by a local fan named 'Walter,' and several pages of archive material from previous meetings of the two clubs. Bridgwater's program is obviously a labour of love for some devoted fan. Ironically, the effort and devotion needed to produce it Tuesday night would far outweigh the effort and devotion of the two clubs to win the match it was covering.

There was one odd thing about the program, though, and that is the cover. There are two photographs. One is of Bridgwater's joint manager Leigh Robinson in a shirt and tie looking like he has just caught the smell of something rather unpleasant. He also appears to be holding an imaginary pint glass in one hand. The second picture is topped by the FA's Respect logo and shows a Bridgwater player screaming and falling to the ground. His expression is so over the top I assume this is an illustration of 'simulation.' The only thing I can think of that would connect the two pictures is that they could both be good examples of the art of miming. Perhaps Marcel Marceau has fans in Bridgwater.

The ground itself was neat, tidy, and well designed. It had all of the amenities one would expect at a club in step four of the non-league pyramid, except everything looked newer and in better repair. The pitch looked well maintained and even. The floodlights pleasingly bright. It felt as if this was a houseproud (or rather, 'groundproud') club. I suspect they have ambitions for greater things than Division 1 South & West of the Zamaretto Southern League.

The only odd thing about the ground was that it was part of a string of sporting facilities. One end of the ground bordered a rugby ground that appeared to have much larger stands. On the other end there were a series of five-a-side football pitches, including one that was in use. Only a wire fence separated the their match from ours, which gave the proceedings a slightly surreal atmosphere. Those ten players could have watched the match that I had paid £7 to see for free, but instead they chose to ignore it an concentrate on their own game. It felt strangely insulting.

There were plenty of paying Bridgwater fans who were very attentive to the match, however. Most fans sported team scarves or baseball caps. Like the program and the ground, they seemed a little bit too well put together for a meaningless match at this level.

The match kicked off quietly and I realised I felt a bit conflicted about what I was watching. Adie Britton had obviously decided to field as weak a team as possible, or rather, field what was as much of a reserve side as possible. Of the starting eleven only Matt Coupe, Kaid Mohamed, Mike Perrott, and Richard Evans could be described as established, healthy members of the first team. The keeper was someone named Dunn I had never heard of. A fellow City fan told me he is a keeper we play only when we want to lose. Mark Badman was playing his first game after an injury. The rest of the squad included teenagers Jamie Taylor, Raif Gwinett, and Ashley Caldwell. Callum Hart who had just joined the team made his first start in defence. All of these players, except Dunn, are expected to feature in City's future, but at this point it was the sort of team one would select for a friendly. Sensing what Coach Britton's priorities were I was only mildly disquieted when Bridgwater scored on a break towards the end of the first half. Dunn blocked a shot into the path of an oncoming Bridgwater player. The rest of the first half was largely forgetable.

At half-time a Bridgwater fan came over to the small cluster of City fans I was with . He asked if this was really City's first team. We said no. As if to illustrate the point City stalwarts Lewis Hogg and Sido Jombati began to kick the ball around the pitch. They moved with the relaxed style of substitutes not expecting to be used - something unthinkable in a league match. We asked the Bridgwater fan if they were playing their best team. He said that thier three best players were on the bench. 'I don't want us to win this,' he confessed. Suddenly being a goal down didn't seem bad at all.

The second half started much more brightly. City began to zip the ball around midfield and launching crosses into the Bridgwater penalty area. I began to reflexively hope for an equaliser, even though I knew a victory could lead to an away match on a cold November evening against Portishead or Minehead and a clogged fixture list. I decided it is almost impossible to watch your team and not will them to victory. A few mintues into the second half a ball from the five-a-side match flew onto the pitch. Fortunately it was while the players were lining up for a free kick. It was a quinessential non-league moment.

City continued to dominate play for most of the second half, but Mohamed was not able to penetrate the Bridgwater defence playing alone up front. Eventually City's inexperienced defense was caught out again and Bridgwater took a 2-0 lead.

Faced with a two goal deficit with only half an hour left to play Adie Britton made a decisive substitution. He took off Mohamed, City's only recognised striker on the pitch, and replaced him with holding mid-fielder Jim Rollo. It was exactly the right move to make to make sure City didn't score. It confirmed to me that a loss would be a welcome outcome. When the scoreline went to 3-0 a few minutes before full time I didn't even wince.

Bridgwater's fans cheered mightily when the referee's whistle blew. They gathered around the entrance of the pitch and raised a loud cheer when the Bridgwater players passed by. They did this knowing that further rounds in the Somerset Cup was just an unwanted millstone for their club, a millstone Bath City was now free of. I can not blame them, though. If City had won I would have done the same. You must show appreciation for your team when they win. As I walked to the car park in silence, though, I was glad that in this instance, I did not have to.

The Blue Blazers Speak

I had a response today to the email I sent to Somerset FA Chief Executive Jonathan Pike (see Cup Kafkaesque).

Here it is:

The Premier Cup is, as the name would suggest, the premier competition in Somerset; however I am aware that it has lost some of its lustre among the competing clubs in recent years and I know that a number of the clubs have at times questioned the relevance of the competition, especially in comparison with league fixtures or lucrative FA competition matches.

However under FA rules any clubs wishing to enter the FA Cup and FA Trophy/Vase, must as a prerequisite enter their own county cup competition to be allowed to enter the FA national competitions. As all of the teams entering the competition do also enter the Cup and trophy/vase, this then mandates that they have to enter; I would stress that this is a FA rule and not a Somerset FA one.

I hope this is of some use

Jon Pike

Chief Executive

I must admit that I was not expecting such a frank and earnest reply. He obviously did not write the Somerset FA's mission statement. To me it sounds like Mr. Pike is saying that the Somerset Premier Cup only exists in order to allow clubs to fulfil their requirements to the FA. If so then perhaps the boys in blue blazers are just as annoyed by this competition as everyone else. Perhaps each year they say to their wives, 'Well, I would like to stay home and watch Midsomer Murders with you tonigh,t but I have to go to this blasted cup final again. They're even making me wear that ridiculous blazer with the badge. Now where is it? You haven't left it at the dry cleaners again, have you?'

Well, something like that, anyway.

I've asked Mr. Pike for clarification. If this is indeed his stance then I will be contacting the FA post haste!

Cup Kafkaesque

Bath City were ejected from the Somerset Premier Cup tonight by Southern League side Bridgwater Town. It was not a narrow loss either. Bridgwater won a convincing 3-0 victory. It was the sort of defeat that could really shake a team right before a crucial FA Cup match on Saturday. It was the sort of defeat that might bring pressure on a manager to resign or cause fans to tear up their season tickets in disgust -- except it wasn't because this was the Somerset Premier Cup. Being ejected from the competition in the first round without picking up any significant injuries is probably the best result City could have hoped for. Really??! What the heck is going on?

The idea that there are multiple trophies at stake in a single season took a while for my American brain to adjust to. Most American sports have only a single championship. European sports leagues usually have several, meaning it is possible for a team to have an average season in the main league competition but still come away with some other title that supporters can point to with pride. Sometimes, though, the extra competitions are just a distraction, and are best dispensed with at the first opportunity. The Somerset Premier Cup is just such a competition.

In the fifty-one times the Cup has been contested, Bath City have won it eighteen times. That's more times than any other Somerset club. That's more times than League 1 rivals Yoeville Town. No one cares. Absolutely no one. There are no 'Somerset Premier Cup Winners' tee shirts printed. No commemorative mugs. The final I went to one year didn't even have a program printed.

Advancing in the cup brings precious little reward. There is no prize money if you win. There is no prestige if you win. There is nothing at all really if you win other than a share of the pitifully small gates (which even then you have to split three ways between the two teams and the Somerset FA). No clubs field their first-choice team until, perhaps, the final (and that's only if the final occurs after the regular season has concluded). It is a woeful excuse for a tournament and no one would mourn its loss if it was allowed to wither away.

This begs the question: why play the Somerset Premier Cup at all? I ask this question regularly whenever I can find someone who looks likely to answer it. The answer is always thus: we have no choice. The Somerset FA have the authority to force all clubs registered in Somerset to play. If they did not have this power, no one would bother. What's worse, Somerset Premier Cup matches take priority over league matches, so if you find yourself so unfortunate as to advance into the later rounds you can have important league fixtures postponed to play Frome Town (as City found to its disadvantage last year). The competition is nothing more than a nuisance imposed from above by a faceless bureaucracy. Faceless bureaucrats, who I have been told repeatedly, are 'old men who wear blue blazers.' What is the source of their power and why are they allowed to keep it? So far no one I have approached can answer this.

I can't tell you much about them yet, but I can tell you that the Somerset FA do have a penchant for second-rate corporate waffle. In the otherwise excellent program for tonight's match you can read the mission of the Somerset FA:

"To Provide opportunities for everyone to fall in love with the game.

Equality For All

Strive for Achievement"

There are some curious uses of tense and capitalisation in this, but a distinct lack of meaningful content. And I have yet to attend a Somerset Premier Cup match that would cause anyone to 'fall in love with the game.' Attending them is more like a grubby one-night stand than a love affair. Afterwards you wonder if you really should have.

This whole setup reminds me of Franz Kafka's unfinished novel, the Castle. In that book the hero, 'K,' is trying to navigate the impenetrable maze of regulations that govern his activities as a land surveyor. He knows that he needs some sort of permission from the administrators who reside in the castle above his village, but just what he needs and who he needs to see to get it is impossible to determine. No one in the village can help him and his only course of action is to try and arrange appointments with an administrator named 'Klam' who is always too busy to help. At no point in the book is K required to play meaningless football matches, but I think that is only because Kafka died before he could finish the book.

Like K, I have written a letter to the Somerset FA's own Klam, Chief Executive Jon Pike. I have included it below. If I get a response I will publish it in tomorrow's post (which will also include my account of tonight's match and my impressions of Bridgwater Town). Until then, be on the lookout for men in blue blazers!

Dear Mr Pike,

I have just returned this evening from watching Bath City lose to Bridgwater Town in the first round of the Somerset Premier Cup. I have a few questions for you if you don't mind. I am American and some of the traditions in British sports still confuse me.

Bath City lost and are therefore ejected from the tournament, but as far as I can tell tonight was the perfect outcome for City. No further injuries were picked up by the already injury-depleted squad. Now Bath City are free to concentrate on important contests like the league, the FA Cup and the FA Trophy. There will be no inconvenient mid-week matches away to Minehead. Winning would have just heaped bother and inconvenience, at best, onto what an already challenging situation for the club.

I do not speak for anyone other than myself, mind you. I'm just a supporter.

I know that most City supporters feel the same as I do, though, that the Somerset Premier Cup is just a waste of time and a chance to pick up injuries in a pointless competition. I met several Bridgwater supporters who were equally eager for their club to lose. It is decidedly odd to hold a competition that no one wants to win.

My question is, why have it at all? What is the purpose of the cup? In what way is it not a burden to clubs already struggling with a difficult economic climate? If you abolished it, would anyone complain?

People tell me the competition persists only because of 'old men in blue blazers' who have the authority to make it continue and to force clubs to play in it. Is that true? It sounds kind of spooky.

I find the whole thing perplexing. Please help.

Yours truly,

Nedved