Why the hell is our match on telly tomorrow?

Ok, so it's Arsenal vs Bolton Wanderers in the FA Cup, a tie with a bit of recent history, the most attractive footballing side in the country against their bogey team.... but before you say "haven't you answered your own question?" let me ask another: what's the FA Cup all about?

I think if there's anything that's essential to the FA Cup, especially these early rounds, it's the romance of small clubs playing big clubs, or playing each other with the promise of one of them playing a big club in the next round. It's about the idea that anyone can win it, and this should be reflected in the idea that anyone can get the telly.

Furthermore, Sky having picked tomorrow's game at Ashburton Grove only serves to fill in a gap in an outrageous and unfair spell of Arsenal dominance on the box. Check this out, extracted from the Arseweb calendar...

Dec 26  Watford        A
Dec 30  Sheff Utd      A 
Jan  2  Charlton       H  (not on telly)
Jan  6  Liverpool      A
Jan  9  Liverpool      A  (League Cup)
Jan 13  Blackburn      A
Jan 21  Man United     H  
Jan 24  Tottenham      A  (League Cup)
Jan 28  Bolton         H  (FA Cup)
Jan 31  Tottenham      H  (League Cup)
Feb  3  Middlesbrough  A
Feb 11  Wigan          H

This is great for armchair Arsenal fans, but it's not right. It's not good for football. Look at the other games they've picked for this weekend: Blackburn vs Luton (4-0 to Rovers by the way), Manchester United vs Portsmouth, and Chelsea vs Nottingham Forest. So, they've picked the games featuring the top 3 sides (Liverpool's temporary league position notwithstanding), 2 of which are all-Premiership, and one token match (is there something I'm missing that made the Ewood Park game interesting?).

What about the Wolves vs West Brom derby match? What about Southend's chances at their nearest Premiership neighbours Tottenham, surely a good chance of an upset there? What about one of the even lesser premiership sides with tricky away fixtures like Reading at Championship high-fliers Birmingham or Middlesbrough at Bristol City? There's a whole load of interesting games they could have picked in the 4th round draw, giving exposure to less frequently exposed clubs, rather than let us have the telly spot yet again.

Teams like Arsenal and Man Utd and Chelsea will be on the telly in later rounds of the Cup, the smaller clubs need to be given the telly games while they're still in it.

I've no idea how many people are going to agree with me and I don't care. It's all wrong, Arsenal people need to be saying so because we're the benificiaries, and it's time the FA sorted it out and started dictating a bit more to the TV people.

Rupe adds...
Mark points out that, against all this, Arsenal have had far from their fair share of terrestrial coverage of our Champs League campaign this season (partly because Manchester United were playing on the same nights, and in a group that also contained Celtic). It's not unusual for us to get less than our fair share from ITV. So far this season, only our away leg of the qualifying round, in Zagreb, has been on terrestrial telly.