OLIVER HOLT: What Ange Postecoglou reminded me about how much we have killed in our national game and how dangerous the consequences will be – it’s so much wider than Cup replays and VAR

The tie over, Ange Postecoglou came back out on to the pitch at the Lamb Ground quickly on Sunday afternoon to start his round of post-match interviews. The light from the watery sun was starting to fade. A couple of Tamworth players who were still talking to the media, had begun to shiver in the cold as the adrenaline of their extra-time defeat wore off. 

Some Tamworth fans in The Shed, a terrace covered by corrugated iron, sang about being cheated out of a replay. Postecoglou came over to where we stood in our semi-circle. The Tottenham Hotspur manager kept his head down as he spoke, which is his habit. He spoke well and succinctly and without artifice, which is also his habit.

It’s one of the reasons I hope Spurs have the sense to realise what they’ve got in Postecoglou. Not the main reason, by any stretch. The main reason would be that he has given Spurs identity and style and defiance and panache and that he is clearly building something worth watching and sticking with until consistency improves.

There aren’t that many independent thinkers around in our game and so when we get someone like Postecoglou, he should be valued. Some people are unnerved by points of difference, of course, so they want him gone. They seek the easy sanctuary of a return to a drone.

So I asked him about what he said last week about our cavalier attitude in this country to the loss of the game’s traditions and the bastardisation of its rules. His point had been about the vandalism wrought by technology, by VAR, but I asked him whether he would widen that.

What about the fact, for instance, that Tamworth had just held Spurs to a draw in normal time and that, last season, before the FA folded and changed the rules, that achievement would have earned them a replay in north London that might have brought them £1million and transformed their future?

Tottenham’s trip to Tamworth offered a stark reminder of how football has abandoned its roots

The non-league club fought valiantly to force a 0-0 draw from Premier League giants Spurs after 90 minutes, before conceding three goals in extra time to crash out of the FA Cup

‘I get the sentiment,’ Postecoglou said, ‘but at the same time I have been banging on about fewer games so it is a balancing act. 

‘The way the calendar is at the moment, it would be almost impossible for us to fit another game in.

‘We are already struggling to fit it all in. I understand the sentiment around it and I certainly believe in the competition and what it does offer every part of the football pyramid and I think it should be protected.’

I am glad Postecoglou said what he said last week. Someone needed to. Because he is absolutely right. We have been negligent with the traditions of our game. We have been asleep. We have allowed the game to be hijacked by charlatans and egomaniacs.

He’s right about our carelessness. There is so much that is good about our game but we have allowed so many things to sour it, too, that it’s difficult to know where to start with a list of things we should never have allowed to happen. 

My list, I suspect, would be longer than Postecoglou’s.

Yes, VAR would be on it. We should never have agreed to its implementation until we were sure that the technology – including semi-automated offsides – was up to it. And that the officials running it were up to it, too. 

It is a good idea in principle but in practice, it has overreached and destroyed the precious flow and spontaneity of the game.

With football chiefs having scrapped the tradition of FA Cup replays since the start of this season, Tamworth have been denied a lucrative trip to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

The dumping of FA Cup replays and introduction of VAR (above) are example of how we have blemished our game, allowing football to be hijacked by charlatans and egomaniacs

Since the inception of the Premier League, English football has given to the richest clubs over and over again, to the detriment of the poorer teams. Pictured: Man City’s owners in 2023

We should have stood against the idea of nation states owning our clubs. It is too late to stop that now but the issues surrounding, in particular, Abu Dhabi’s ownership of Manchester City and the threat it poses to competitive balance have torn the league apart. 

Our fans stopped Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs killing English football by moving to a European Super League but we allowed Uefa to expand the Champions League to a point where it is a de facto Super League that clogs the calendar and eats away at the FA Cup.

We have allowed spiralling ticketing prices to disenfranchise an entire swathe of supporters. We continue, little by little, to take the game away from loyal fans and hand it to day-trippers. Because they spend more.

We have allowed teams to use five substitutes, a development which benefits the richest clubs and wrecks the flow of the game. We have listened to arguments that say it is because it benefits player welfare while watching as attitudes towards concussion remain in the Dark Ages and ex-players like Dean Windass are diagnosed with dementia at the age of 55.

We have rolled over and allowed kick-off times that make it impossible for travelling fans to get to, or from, matches. We may be about to abandon the Saturday 3pm television blackout. 

We have allowed the FA Cup third round weekend to be spread over five days, diluting its joy and its impact. The FA Cup final is no longer the climax of our season.

We have allowed our big clubs to organise lucrative summer tours to Australia and America’s west coast and Singapore and China and we have allowed them to complain, in the next breath, that they play too many matches and that FA Cup replays must be sacrificed to feed the monster.

We have watched as the football establishment has chipped away and chipped away at the income streams of lower-league teams and then we have decried clubs like Tamworth for putting up their prices for the game against Tottenham. As if we expect their funds to come from thin air.

Fans may have stopped the European Super League but we have allowed Uefa to expand the Champions League to a point where it is a de facto Super League that clogs the calendar

Postecoglou said that he wants the football pyramid to be ‘protected’ in an honest admission 

Join Mail+ to read Oliver Holt’s unmissable column every week, plus more of your favourite writers, exclusive stories and interviews and in-depth reporting from the world of sport

The complacent and the patrician stroll on with dollar signs in their eyes and ‘greed is good’ signs hanging in their offices. It is only a couple of years ago that the biggest clubs tried to secede and join the Super League, a development that would have killed the game in this country. How is that a sport that is anything other than dysfunctional? 

Is it really any surprise that some are tempted to look at the advent of an independent regulator for football as a panacea? Sadly, there is no chance it will be that. It would not have stopped state ownership of clubs. It would not have stopped VAR. There is still much that will be beyond its remit 

But as the Football Governance Bill makes its way through the House of Lords and edges closer to being passed into law, it is hard not to think that an independent regulator will rid the game of at least some of its complacency. 

The fact that West Ham vice-chairman Karren Brady is so implacably opposed to it can only be a good sign.

Since the inception of the Premier League, in particular, English football has given to the richest clubs over and over and over and over again. And it has taken from the poor clubs over and over and over and over again.

A whole host of things we have cherished have been destroyed in the name of appeasing the elite. And then, mostly, just as Postecoglou reminded us, we have looked the other way.

Don’t berate Darren Ferguson… praise him

It would have been lovely if Ashley Young, a player I admire, and his son Tyler, had become the first father and son to play against one another in the FA Cup when Everton and Peterborough met in the 3rd round last Thursday night.

It didn’t happen because Tyler was on the substitutes’ bench and Peterborough boss Darren Ferguson didn’t bring him on.

Peterborough boss Darren Ferguson (above) should not be condemned for his decision not to bring on Tyler Young against his father Ashley Young in the FA Cup third round last weekend

Everton veteran Ashley (left) posted that he was ‘gutted’ not to make FA Cup history by playing against his son Tyler (right), but the truth is the Peterborough manager was only doing his job

All Ferguson did was uphold the legitimacy of the competition – and he should be praised

Some idiots have criticised Ferguson for that, as if he were deliberately denying father and son their moment. Some idiots have berated him for ruining the romance of the Cup. 

The truth is that Ferguson was just doing his job. Everton were only leading 1-0 until deep into added time, Peterborough were still in the game and chasing an equaliser, so Ferguson brought on an attacker as his fifth and final substitute.

Nor is it as if Tyler is a regular starter for Peterborough, benched as a vindictive act. He has played 27 minutes of senior football in his career, during a substitute appearance in the EFL Trophy.

Thursday’s occasion was an FA Cup tie, not an episode of Love Island. Football is a meritocracy, not a reality show.

All Ferguson did was uphold the legitimacy of the competition. He deserves our thanks for that, not abuse.