Tom Humphriesfinds the grandiose appurtenances of the new Wembley oddly incompatible with fun and excitement.
Sometimes the expectation suffocates the occasion and the stage dwarfs the players. On Saturday at Wembley, the FA Cup final, an event already shrivelled in significance, struggled to fill the demands placed on it by a perfect afternoon, a wonderful setting and the presence of the two best sides in England.
Chelsea, by virtue of Didier Drogba's fine goal late in the drear of extra time, thus became the last club to win the trophy at the old Wembley and the first to raise the cup in the new building. It wasn't enough.
Poor dapper little Jose Mourinho got a little jiggy when it was over but in his heart he knew it wasn't enough. His doggies will be in quarantine somewhere else next year.
Jose's Russian paymaster won't consider the FA Cup sufficient payback on investment. And Alex Ferguson and the Manchester reds who filled one half of the new coliseum knew it wasn't enough either. They digested their disappointment lightly.
"Tomorrow we'll get on with life," said Alex in a tone that suggested it might not even take that long.
The TV and radio people puffed it up though. More than enough! They screamed Didier Drogba had denied Manchester United "the double" as if the days when the league and the FA Cup represented a double composed of two roughly equal achievements weren't long gone.
They are though. The pre-match parading of representatives from past winner of the cup reminded us cruelly of the days when cup-final moments were indelible.
This year Manchester United won the Premiership, the only domestic competition that matters. Both they and Chelsea are safely latched on to the magical, life-giving teat of the Champions League for another year.
Saturday's FA Cup final was a sunny suffix to a decent season and a proper inauguration for a stadium which is instantly as iconic as its predecessor. Nothing else really mattered.
The football was poor and listless for long periods but the afternoon was about different things. The new Wembley, pristine and gleaming, is an event in itself , perhaps the most gloriously appointed shearing shed in the entire world of sport.
Its new customers, white-collar football types mainly, moved wordlessly through its wonder (2,618 toilets, folks) and formed long queues at the bank machines as they adjusted to a brave new world where a match programme costs a tenner and a burger costs half that.
They moved through the new building with the hushed, insulated silence of people passing through an airport terminal, a museum or a cathedral. Apparently, the design of the new stadium is such it devours its own noise. The interiors though are so plush they wag a stern finger at the babel and chaos a football match would normally bring. People moved up and down the escalators and through the concourses (900 outlets for selling you stuff you don't need) whispering to each other about what a nice job had been done.
Outside when the seats (more roomy and with more legroom than the pews in the old royal box, guvnor) were filled the place looked gorgeous but still sounded muted. The organisers had a brief cardiac episode when they attempted to get the crowd to join in the traditional cup-final hymn, Abide With Me, but the fans, recalcitrant as schoolkids, refused to sing along. Then the PA played Chelsea Dagger by The Fratellis and at least half the stadium couldn't forbear to cheer.
Doo-De-Doo Doo-De-Doo! The first half was an imposition on paying customers. Cautious, we said in the splendid press areas. Dire, they said everywhere else. And there was an unexpected visual hitch. If the seven-metre-wide white arch which loops high above the structure (already four times taller than the stadium it replaced) is the defining feature of this new cathedral then the deep shadows the roof casts over large areas of the pitch may be a more visible design legacy on match days.
After the break to haggle over the price of burgers and try any one of those toilets one liked a football match of sorts broke out. Wayne Rooney, not looking as jaded as his companero Cristiano Ronaldo, made a muscular run the entire length of the field, and though it ended in nothing it sparked a little urgency - but not enough to convince us the cup final wasn't lurching to extra time and penalties for the third year in succession. Chelsea, without their top baubles Shevchenko and Ballack, had slightly the better of things and the game carried a discernible mean undercurrent, the odd reckless tackle reminding the pros that if the FA Cup doesn't mean much anymore old scores still require settling.
Drogba's goal not long before the players were to be punished with the cruel and unusual sentence of penalties was a shard of brilliance protruding from the stodge. Chelsea deserved it for the superior sense of adventure, for Drogba's muscularity, Lampard's adventure and Jon Obi Mikel's wonderful tackling and exemplary hard work.
"Like a king," said Mourinho of the youngster afterwards, rubbing it into Manchester United for failing to keep the youngster they spotted first.
Wembley emptied quietly. We took a taxi to Heathrow. The driver had just dropped off a sober couple whom he'd picked up in Wembley an hour earlier. They had been asked to leave for standing up. We wondered what exactly they'd wanted to stand up for.
