Nice Beer, Sh*t Cup
24/08/00 | by Alex Walker for EMSoccer.com

Ah the Worthington Cup. An early season trip to Darlington to watch the Reds put in a pitiful performance and come home with an embarrassing result with only the prospect of the return leg to make it seem worthwhile. Forest have a tradition of being very bad at the League Cup. Okay, we actually have a tradition of being quite good at it, seeing as we have successfully defended it on two separate occasions and have won it more than any other trophy. But recently Forest have been subject to the odd embarrassing result. Cast your minds back to the shock defeat against Walsall as we tried to get our Championship campaign up and running. Or the Premiership side that were forced to play out a penalty shoot-out with Cambridge.

So why is it that we can never seem to beat 3rd Division sides? As with most problems in football today, it boils down to money. When you're on a Premiership wage, a trip to the Feethams Stadium is hardly the highest target on your ambitions list. You can see it in the players when they stroll out onto the field and start warming up looking about as interested as the average GCSE student during a Geography lesson. And then they act all surprised when they go out to Oxford.

So what can we do? It's fairly obvious that the League Cup doesn't provoke the same emotions as the FA Cup. Lower League teams see it as a temporary annoyance and more congestion in their already packed fixture lists; First Division teams look on it as a way to give the reserves a run about; and Premiership teams just can't be arsed and would rather face the momentary shame of a defeat against Sheffield United than put their UEFA Cup tie away at Hamburg at risk.

But the biggest reason I think the League Cup is so rubbish is the two teams in the final: Tranmere, a mediocre Division One side with no money and enough talent to make their throw-in taker the biggest star, and Leicester, a team who were experiencing their worst form since Martin O'Neill first took over. Everybody else just can't be bothered. I'm not saying that Leicester's achievement wasn't good, as I'm perfectly happy to admit Mr O'Neill did well, but even the Scottish League Cup final normally has one of the top two teams in it, if not both of them.

Personally, if I was in charge at Chelsea or Leeds, or even Arsenal or Man U, I would go out full force to try and win the Worthington Cup. If you win that you are a) in Europe and b) in good favour with the Chairman and Fans for putting a trophy in the cabinet. But no-one seems to have caught onto this, and when they do, the players let them down with complacent attitudes. What is needed is a re-think. Maybe make it just a Cup for Football League teams (as it's called the Football League Cup, I'm not sure how Premiership sides managed to get in anyway) perhaps. Not only would this give teams the chance to win a major trophy, but it would also generate more revenue for the non-Premiership teams. Aaahh that's it. Teams get paid by Worthington for taking part in their cup. So no-one is going to want to drop out. How about uniting the English and Scottish (maybe even the Welsh and Irish if we want a good laugh) Cups. Imagine it: Glasgow Rangers v Arsenal in the British Cup Final, in March! I'd like to see Tranmere get to the final if they had to play Celtic in the Quater-finals rather than Fulham.

I know I may be sounding bitter because Forest are so useless in this competition, and that any Foxes reading this will like the Cup (for obvious reasons) but I'm sure I am not alone in thinking that if we must have a second cup, then it should be able to raise the same excitement as the FA Cup, without being a poor man's version.