Gary Lineker silenced but the FA Cup is still in fine voice

No Gary Lineker on Sunday, but great news for MP Scott Benton nevertheless, because the afternoon’s FA Cup episode had all the goals in.

We may never know how the member for Blackpool South reacted upon being denied the chance to go to the pub not before but after Saturday’s regular-length Match of the Day, in the time-honoured way that every normal footie-loving supporter definitely does.

Three cheers for the local sports team, and a round of drinks for all of my imaginary friends, stout yeoman of the bar. We can be confident that Mr Benton and parliamentary colleague John Redwood would have enjoyed both BBC and ITV coverage of the FA Cup, which featured good replays so you could see what happened and understand penalty calls.

What might these or other newly minted televised football fans have made of the terrestrial coverage of the world’s oldest knockout competition? Lineker himself had presented the Manchester City v Burnley mismatch on Saturday, and was sounding increasingly croaky throughout.

Alan Shearer had popped up early on the coverage of that to say: “I need to clear up and wanted to say how upset we were that all the audiences who missed out on last weekend. It was a really difficult situation for everyone concerned. And through no fault of their own some really great people in TV and in radio were put in an impossible position and that wasn’t fair. It’s good to get back to some sort of normality and be talking about football again.”

Fair enough, and an impossible position is about right. The suspicion persists that we have not heard the last of this BBC, bias and free-speech row; hopefully it will not spoil the football for a while again at least. Alas for Gary, he would not be doing much more talking throughout the quarter-finals.

On Sunday, he announced via Twitter that “I’ve been silenced… literally, by a nasty cold so, annoyingly, won’t be working at Brighton this afternoon”. A substitute was hastily rustled up, Alex Scott no less, to present the match against Grimsby. Riding shotgun were Danny Murphy, the Mark Lawrenson de nos jours, and the lesser-spotted Glenn Murray, formerly of Brighton.

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This column rather enjoys the work of Murphy, who has taken on the Lawro mantle of dour, vaguely campy miserablism but it has to be acknowledged that he is not everybody’s cup of meat. Cannot remember seeing Murray on the television before, but he seemed an affable cove and a good foil for Murphy, who, it turns out, has an unusual connection with Grimsby in that his uncle, Paul Futcher, was one of their best-ever players. Every day is indeed a school day.

Grimbsy’s fans had come bearing inflatable fish but were regrettably, battered by the Premier League side, feasted upon by the Seagulls. ITV had much the better luck, getting a genuinely exciting Cup tie, with Fulham taking the lead against Manchester United, having two men sent off, including Aleksandar Mitrovic for a crazy shove on the referee, and then the manager getting his marching orders as well, thus giving pundit Roy Keane an opportunity to analyse something on which he is a world authority: the theory and practice of haranguing a referee at Old Trafford.

“We’ve all been there,” Keane said. “Self-destruction. It was a mad 90 seconds. Fulham found a way to lose and they might get one or two plaudits but they won’t be getting any plaudits from me.”

Indeed not, but what a great piece of entertainment. Lineker-less may have been, but a very acceptable FA Cup Sunday, and nice to have football on terrestrial telly. The greatest cup competition always delivers something, and we await the next episode with excitement.