WingA Posted February 27, 2009 Date: Sunday 1st March Venue: Wembley Stadium, London Referee: Chris Foy (Merseyside) Assistant Referees: Peter Kirkup (Northamptonshire), Andy Butler (Lancashire) 4th Official: Andre Marriner (West Midlands) The 49th Carling Cup Final sees Sir Alex Ferguson once again go head to head with his good friend Harry Redknapp in a cup competition. While United have already eliminated Redknapp’s side from this year’s FA Cup, Harry only has to look back to last season at Portsmouth when, having eliminated United from the competition, he held the cup at Wembley and became an instant hero on the south coast. Beat his old foe next week and Harry will be carrying silverware around Wembley for the 2nd successive year. With both managers struggling with a hugely congested fixture schedule they will nevertheless want to win this one and bag the first major domestic trophy of the season. The game has an added edge for both teams. As the defending champions Spurs will want to retain the trophy which could add some gloss to an otherwise trying season. For United it will be the first shot at bagging the much hyped ‘quadruple’ and Sir Alex will not want to fail at the first hurdle. History While the Carling Cup lost some of its glamour in the earlier part of this decade it now seems to have firmly re-established itself as a trophy worth winning. There was much criticism of the ‘bigger’ teams when they went through a phase of playing their 2nd string in this competition, a sign that they considered it more of a nuisance in the calendar than anything else. In the last 5 years, however, of the 10 finalists involved (including this year) all but 3 (Spurs twice and Wigan) have been ‘Top 4’ teams. That’s not to say that a good number of reserves and youngsters are not still on show from the ‘big’ teams but the balance has been better and results have shown that. Starting in 1961, the League Cup has gone through many format changes as well as name changes driven by sponsorship. For a brief but thorough history of the competition click here. United and Spurs have both been in the final 6 times, Spurs coming-off better with 4 wins to United’s 2. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
