A great many tears were shed the day Ian Watmore departed the Football Association. Not here. Watmore's big idea involved a revamp of the FA Cup. Hell, everybody has got a plan to titivate the Cup these days.
Move matches to midweek, give the winners a place in the Champions League, hand home advantage to the weaker teams, make all ties a one-match knock-out, with extra-time and penalties. The FA Cup, we are told, has lost its relevance. It has never recovered from Manchester United's failure to defend it in season 1999-2000. Nobody cares anymore.
And yet, go through the highlights of this season and - just like every season - some of our most durable memories are provided by the FA Cup. Leeds United winning at Old Trafford, Reading knocking out Liverpool. What if Portsmouth, a club taken to the very edge of existence, defeat Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday and make it to Wembley? What if Chelsea do the Double for the first time in their history, or Martin O'Neill lands the trophy he needs to take Aston Villa to the next level?
These are huge games, with the potential for wonderful drama, as always in the FA Cup. Never forget that, to many, the defining image summing up the effervescence of Sir Alex Ferguson's time at Manchester United is Ryan Giggs wonderful solo goal against Arsenal: in a Cup game.
Watmore wanted to play FA Cup ties in mid-week, which would have succeeded only in making the competition an upmarket version of the League Cup. He would have ushered in the demise of the weekend in the season that traditionalists love most of all: that of the FA Cup third round. Romance in football would, officially, have been dead.
The Carling Cup has survived by its reinvention as a window on the future. Arsenal might pit their next generation against the first-team of, say, Burnley. Arsenal fans are happy because everybody thrills to the sight of the next tyro, for Burnley there is the hope of an upset and a rare tilt at a trophy.
That happens in the FA Cup on occasions, too, yet because we expect more from the competition it is not viewed in the same benign light. The big clubs are devaluing the competition, we hear; the glamour has gone.
Try telling that to the tens of thousands heading for Wembley this weekend. Try telling that to the followers of Portsmouth, who may be enjoying one last tilt at the big time, before years of impoverished obscurity.
The greatest red herring, meanwhile, is that the FA Cup needs the prize of a Champions League place to make it significant. For a start, random success rather than season-long consistency is no way to decide the make-up of the major club competition in world football. Beyond that, however, is the substance of the Cup itself. Think of probably the most famous match in the history of English club football. Blackpool 4 Bolton Wanderers 3, the Matthews Final of 1953. What European entry card were they playing for back then? None. They were playing for the glory of winning the FA Cup. A glory that remains. Ask Portsmouth.