Glad it's all over

So that’s it. Done until August. Or July. Or the end of June, depending on where your club sits geographically or hierarchically.

The 2012-2013 football season is, more or less, over, bar a Champions League Final at Wembley between two German teams (so twice as guaranteed to end with penalties), and the Championship Playoff Final two days later at the same venue.

Has it been a vintage nine months? No. Not when its highlight has been the retirements of a manager and the replica shirt salesman who once played for him.

Not when the Premier League is won four weeks early by an in-development Manchester United, with the reigning champions failing to put up much of a fight.

And not when the wooden spoon positions of third and fourth become so critical to clubs' fortunes that they become performance objectives in their own right, fought over like the last grains of rice in a famine.

The 2012-13 season has, to be honest, been pretty mediocre. And that mediocrity hasn't been helped by the recurrence of racism as a core issue, the brief flare-ups of old-school hooliganism, and players and their clubs doing little to protect their reputations from their own behavioural misdemeanors.

Added to that, we've witnessed the sorry, greedy, paranoid state of affairs in which by March, 103 English league managers and coaches had been sacked, resigned or, to use that old chestnut, departed “by mutual consent”. What kind of season is it when onetime European champions Nottingham Forest fire four managers, and that chickens-in-a-basket case Blackburn Rovers end up with their fourth their season since August?

Like a Grand Prix, it is rare these days to end a football season feeling completely satisfied. Tired, yes, out of pocket, certainly, but after the requisite 38 games (or 69 if you're Chelsea...), it's difficult to look back completely objectively and say "that was brilliant from start to finish". Because, short of 20 teams taking it down to the wire at either end of table, seasons tend to be as attritional as a French battlefield in 1917.

So, to formerly shutter this term, What Would David Bowie Do? presents its club-by-club end-of-term opinion on the Barclays Premier League 2012-13, in the process offering no apology whatsoever for the longer rant about Chelsea than anyone else (at least it's spared you a separate post...):

Manchester United (89 points, goal difference +43) Champions

On the opening day of the 1995-1996 season, that football sage Alan Hansen told Match of the Day viewers that "You can't win anything with kids" after a somewhat juvenile Manchester United team went down 3-1 to Aston Villa. That United team went on to win one of the club's 11 league titles under Sir Alex Ferguson.

United looked similarly young this season, and history repeated itself with a defeat, at home on the opening day. It would appear that Hansen's retirement from Match of the Day hasn't come soon enough. But enough about him.

This may not have been a vintage season for Manchester United, but in his customary manner, SAF fixed his one main problem audaciously by bringing in van Persie, and blooded more youngsters in to the extent that the likes of Phil Jones ended the season looking like he'd been a first team regular for years. United's season ultimately prevailed, but you have to wonder what a more spirited title defence from City would have achieved, and what if more teams like Chelsea had gone to Old Trafford and played United at their own game.

I'm not going to add to the already universal lament for Sir Alex, save that despite all we have vituperatively aimed at him from the terraces down the years, his remarkable record at Manchester United does speak for itself. Less so the largely mute savant Paul Scholes - an inspirational midfielder at times, an unguided cluster bomb on occasion - whose eventual retirement deserves recognition. So, too, David Beckham. OK, he hadn't played for United in ten years, spending that time in Spain, Italy, California and France shifting merchandise for Adidas, but it was at Old Trafford under Ferguson that one of football's greatest stars was created, along with a modicum of ability.

Manchester City (78pts, GD +32) 2nd

Chelsea responded to their first league title in fifty years by winning another one in 2006. Manchester City responded to their first league title in 44 years by becoming increasingly dysfunctional, with their much respected manager Roberto Mancini losing his focus (Balotelli) and his political nouse in both the boardroom and the dressing room.

Finishing second is never a bad thing, but as successive managers at Stamford Bridge have found, second is always second best in the eyes of ambitious and success-greedy proprietors who believe that their investments owe them a right.

Getting sacked was an astonishingly cruel outcome for Mancini, but with Manchester United not being as rampant this season as their points and securing the title prematurely might suggest, the 11-point, 11-goal deficit with their neighbours became enough of a gaping chasm to expose a team that could have done much better with the right management approach. To end the season with a management clearout before the final game suggests a poisonous atmosphere

Chelsea (75pts, GD +36) 3rd

If I were to believe the club and it's patronizingly-titled "Interim First Team Coach" for the last seven months, all that Chelsea set out to achieve this season was achieved.

The reality is somewhat different. Winning the one trophy that, at the beginning of the season, wasn't even amongst the seven Chelsea were contending for, is an unnatural victory.

Of course, as a fan, I am delighted they won a consecutive European trophy and joined the small elite of clubs to have won all three of the continent's major silverware. But, still, Chelsea  as ever the masters of dysfunction, what with their handling of the Clattenburg affair, the aftermath of the John Terry racism mess, and the annual managerial switcheroo. Keeping Roberto Di Matteo only long enough to pay lip service to his successes as interim boss (yeah, only the European Cup and FA Cup...) was hardly a shining moment of endearment to the fanbase, which they worsened by hiring the most divisive individual they could have possibly chosen. Rafa Benitez says - with some justification, I'll concede - his appointment has been vindicated. I would say that third place and a second-choice, default trophy only vindicates the decision to make him an interim coach.

Performance-wise, Chelsea regressed this season. Yes, I know, 69 fixtures and all that, but if that stretched the side so much, why did they have virtually a full 11 out on loan, with Romalu Lukaku banging 'em in for fun at West Bromwich Albion and Thibaut Courtois helping Athletico Madrid to the Copa del Rey and third place in La Liga? What, too, was the point of replacing Di Matteo with Benitez when the waiter's record hasn't been fundamentally any better - an identical win ratio of 57% over a similar number of games in charge.

Did Chelsea progress at all over the course of this season? Yes, in spots. Eden Hazard eventually settled in to become a lethal component of an attack, with Juan Mata making himself indispensable and justifiably the club's player of the season. Fernando Torres still spent most of 2012-13 as a grumpy teenager, but despite not scoring in the league between December and last Sunday, a 23-goal haul for the season is not at all bad.

Further back, Chelsea was, at times, a defensively gaping chasm this season. But at least give to Benitez for converting David Luiz to holding midfield, where his discipline improved out of all recognition, and he began to appear destined to become one of the club's big personalities, a latter day Joe Allon, and even a captain in the making.

Mention should also be made of Nathan Ake, the Dutch teenager who not only emulates Ruud Gullitt's former hair-do, he also emulates Gullitt's midfield presence. And finally, hats off to Paolo Ferreira: as loyal a servant as you'll find these days in football, he played out his contract at Chelsea without complaint or going on strike, serving as a true squad player as well as providing invaluable support and mentoring to the club's young Brazilians. Obrigado!

Arsenal (73 pts, GD +35) 4th

There is a scene at the end of the terrific World War II movie The Bridge At Remagen where Robert Vaughan, playing a somewhat sympathetic German officer defending a Rhine crossing from the advancing Allies, is carted off by the SS to be shot. In his final scene, Vaughan's Major Krüger asks an SS goon whether the planes he can hear are German or Allied. "Enemy planes!" comes the curt SS reply, to which Krüger, with a downbeat look on his face mutters, "But who is the enemy...?" before being shot. I mention this only because Arsène Wenger has, at many times this season, carried the same look as Vaughan's in that final scene.

As the season has worn on it has been obvious that Wenger's Arctic-tog Millets sleeping bag-come-overcoat wasn't for keeping out the cold but protecting him from his own side's bullets. He has, on occasion, looked quite forlorn and helpless, the perfect presentation of that line "hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way" from Pink Floyd's Time. The problem is, how much of this has been his own fault? On paper - and certainly if you are a Spurs fan - achieving Champions League football for the 16th consecutive season is a glittering prize, but crucially, it is still the only reward Arsenal can claim after eight dismal years without so much a silver teaspoon in the trophy room. And that just isn't good enough. Arsenal are still a brilliant side led by a brilliant manager, but at times it's like finding Hendrix playing bar room blues in a provincial pub.

This is simply where Arsenal shouldn't be. Two positions higher, they'd be runners up. Three, champions. The 12-points separation between Manchester United and Arsenal isn't such an unassailable gap, but then that only inflames the situation further. What difference would a striker have made to those 12 points? What difference would some flair in midfield have made? Would some better options for creativity have made things better?

"Boring, boring, Arsenal", is how we used to chide visiting Gooners, but more for the disciplined way they got on with being annoyingly more successful than ourselves. Now that 'boring tag' seems to apply to a team that will happily achieve another tilt at the Champions League, taking the nice little welcome package that comes with it, and still do nothing about making one of football's great clubs perform like it.

Only Wenger can really answer these questions. Fourth is no disaster, and no one team actually deserves anything, anyway. But even to this Chelsea fan, the look on my face this season as I've looked across London has been as flummoxed as that on Wenger's. Except that it's his job to fix the problem.

Tottenham Hotspur (72 pts, GD +20) 5th

Much rested on André Villas-Boas's young shoulders this season when he stepped into Harry Redknapp's shoes at White Hart Lane. Clearly, the chemistry at Chelsea had been all wrong - would Spurs be any better? Clearly, yes, and although fifth place and another crack at Europe's second-string competition is not ideal (it was the same result that got Redknapp fired), AVB has restored Spurs to be a genuine top-four challenger this season, as Redknapp had done before his mojo departed in early 2012.

It would be tempting to say this season has been all about Gareth Bale for Tottenham, but it's patently clear that without him, Spurs are lacking somewhat, and can't rely totally on Adebayor and Dempsey, or Parker, for that matter, to create chances. Hanging on to Bale has to be Tottenham's inter-season priority, with a much needed talent refresh elsewhere a close second.

Everton (63 pts, GD +15) 6th

David Moyes has done all he can do for Everton. His appointment as Sir Alex Ferguson's successor is what we all expected - including, apparently, Ferguson himself. As demonstrated at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, Everton - despite their apparent threadbare finances - are no-nonsense grafters in the manner of their manager of 11 years, playing robustly and effectively when consensus would say there's no need. Losing the substantial Fellaini would be a bitter blow, Leighton Baines even worse, but Everton - for all their modesty - have been left in creditable shape by the only possible candidate for the vacancy at Old Trafford.

Liverpool (61 pts, GD +28) 7th

For those still stuck in the era of big hair and bigger moustaches on Merseyside, to end seventh behind Everton but with a greater goal difference must be agony. It must be even harder to accept that in Luis Suarez, despite his headline-grabbing, arm-chewing antics, Liverpool had one of the Premier League's star assets this term. Brendan Rodgers even managed to return Daniel Sturridge to something approaching the quality he should have shown at Chelsea. But those aside, a disappointing season for the mighty Reds. Inconsistent and lacking the kind of strength across the park that Liverpool would have had without question in eras past. On the upside, Jamie Carragher retired, so we'll no longer have to put up with his scally whining.

West Bromwich Albion (49 pts, GD -4) 8th

OK, to be third at the end of October was the sort of start Baggies fans could have only dreamed of. And we have been there before with unfancied sides enjoying the nosebleed reaches of the table within the season's first three months. To end eigth may be disappointing, but put into context, not to be sniffed at either. Steve Clarke is still learning the art of management, and learning how to deal with player fallouts like Peter Odemwingie's ridiculous show-up at QPR (which he must be relieved about now...), which suggested an unhappy dressing room.

Swansea City (46 pts, GD -4) 9th

Roberto Martinez, Brendan Rogers and, this season, Michael Laudrup have made Swansea a team to keep a close eye on. Though never realistically likely to bother the upper echelon - for now - this term Laudrup (and a ball boy) helped them to the League Cup (their first trophy in 101 years) and produced a Top 10 finish. The signing of Michu was a big statement of a club with a very healthy attitude to development and, although the final third of the season didn't bring quite the same momentum of results as the first two-thirds, Laudrup has established himself as yet another Swansea manager with a future, and the club, an even better attacking package than ever before.

West Ham United (46 pts, GD -8) 10th

For a side connected, it would seem, by bungee rope to the Championship, Big Sam has instilled some stability - not to mention restored 'Ammers' customary robustness on their latest return to the Premier League. Tenth place may appear like the mid-table mediocrity Coventry went season-after-season pursuing and securing, but it reflects their solid home form (which took points off the two Manchesters and Chelsea) as well as their somewhat weaker performance on the road. The departure of Carlton Cole might indicate a bigger clearout by Allardyce, but the first priority must be pinning down Andy Carroll.

Norwich City (44 pts, GD -17) 11th

Chris Hughton's dismissal from Newcastle in December 2010 still sticks in the craw of many, so it appeared that his appointment to Norwich, succeeding Paul Lambert, promised to be the sort of "good guy lands good club" story. And so it has proven, sort of, with Norwich pulling off creditable home wins over Manchester United and Arsenal, and, despite some relegation wobbles, coming to a halt in 11th. Norwich fans will want more, of course, or at least less hovering around the Championship trap door that has detracted from their game, but the potential for Norwich to be a top half player is there for their taking.

Fulham (43pts, GD -10) 12th

We all love Martin Jol. Big old Anglophile bear of a manager. We all find his "...and ah think..." interviews endearingly frank, which is no great surprise from a Dutchman. The trouble is, Fulham have hardly progressed under him. His squad has aged and even with Dimitar Berbatov/Andy Garcia in the ranks, Fulham have failed to look anything more than mid-table pedestrians. Jol may pay the price for this, with an unsettled Gus Poyet at Brighton possibly considering the 'other' west Londoners his next career development platform.

Stoke City (42 points, GD -11) 13th

No vintage season for Stoke. Not so long ago they were the Premier League's Awkward Squad, possessing the disruptive ability  to bruise the egos of clubs with bigger purses and bigger reputations. This time around they've looked less than average at times, prompting questions about whether Tony Pulis had taken them as far as he could. Developments, yesterday, at the Britannia Stadium said that they had. Sir Alex Ferguson lasted 26 years at Manchester United, the result of a perfect storm of club, finances, players bought and players brought through. Tony Pulis lasted just seven years by comparison, but even that is a lengthy stay in this day and age, when simply establishing your side as a Premier League fixture isn't enough. Directors want more, and the supporters want even more in the way of team development..

Southampton (41 pts, GD -11) 14th

Much like the Little Britain sketch in which serial ASBO collector Vicky Pollard complained that she didn't have a "brahn baby" like every other girl on her estate, Premier League clubs could be forgiven for missing out on the phenomenon of being taken over by a mad but wealthy foreign owner who promptly goes about creating dysfunctionality like an unwanted outbreak of acne in adulthood. Thus, Southampton acquired their very own sugar daddy, Markus Liebherr, who subsequently established Italian banker Nicola Cortese as club chairman, and then they set about securing Saints' long-term future. Keeping Nigel Adkins in place as manager maintained at least two seasons of stability at the club with renewed ambition, but his generally-deemed unfair sacking in January, suggested another foreign owner gone nuts. But unlike, say, the Di Matteo/Benitez transition, the appointment of Mauricio Pochettino has at least endeared the fans, especially with the team's adoption of attacking football. What won't go down well, inevitably, is a precarious bottom half finish, with that term "safety" being a more acceptable term than "almost".

Aston Villa (41 pts, GD -22) 15th

Villa have had a truly baffling season. From Premier League staples, they started taking on water quite ominously. The 8-0 Christmas defeat to Chelsea - a fixture that normally gives Villa rich pickings and damns the incumbent Chelsea coach to an Abramovich payoff - was a low point from which they only just managed to recover in the nick of time in the final two weeks of the season. That said, Paul Lambert is in the luxurious position of having a club owner who recognises that his manager is trying to build a young new team. It will take time, as the disjointed performances this season have exposed, but in Christian Benteke they have a precocious talent to build around or behind. For now, 2012-13 may simply be a season for Villa to draw a line under and build on.

Up and down the land, the final day of the 2012-13 season was notable for its so-what results, the odd last-minute escape and a handful of retirements. Of them all, none were more poignant than that of Stiliyan 'Stan' Petrov, the Villa captain diagnosed with acute leukaemia - "this crazy thing" as he calls it. Football wishes him every success in continuing to fight it and fight for those who also have it.

Newcastle United (41 pts, GD -23) 16th

How Newcastle ended up 16th (and that could have been a lot worse) from their fifth-place finish last season is an abject lesson in how easily - and quickly - it can all go wrong in the Premier League. No sooner had the club tied itself to Alan Pardew for a six-year contract, than the points started dropping like Christmas tree pine needles on Boxing Day. Another club which hasn't been without its own form of owner meddling-induced madness, Newcastle's bright start almost ended in relegation, the football equivalent of the office lift's cable snapping. The New Year influx of young French talent may have been good news at the time, but their apparent failure to gel appeared to be major factors in the telephone number-score defeats inflicted in the second two-thirds of the season.

Sunderland (39 pts, GD -13) 17th

If this season's verdicts seem to draw mainly on the instability of so many clubs, then it's no accident. Managerial firings well into the season have now become so commonplace that we're pretty blasé about them. The sight of Martin O'Neill - arguably one of the most respected gaffers in the game - struggling to arrest Sunderland's slide with a squad seemingly lacking any of the passion and nuclear reactor-like drive of the Northern Irishman was a pity. So what do they do next? Bring in a manager with no Premier League experience and a historic sympathy towards fascism. Not since the FA bungled their attempted appointment of Luiz Felipe Scolari as England coach has a managerial arrival been such a PR disaster. To his credit, Paolo di Canio kept Sunderland out of relegation - just - but only by coming second in the 'mini league' fighting for Premier League survival in the lower reaches. In the process, it would appear, di Canio has applied his own version of tough love. Time, and next season, will see whether his approach has been the right one. For now, this season has to be marked down as a very poor one for Sunderland.

Wigan Athletic (36 points, GD -26) 18th Relegated

Yes, yes, yes. It was all very Hollywood to see Wigan beat Manchester City in the dying seconds of the FA Cup Final. Yes, yes, yes, we Brits love an underdog. Roberto Martinez is one of football's most likeable and erudite managers, and Dave Whelan, apparently, one of those old school, local-boy-made-good chairman (unlike that porky upstart across the country at Newcastle...). But, romance aside, Wigan left it too little too late to fight themselves out of the drop. Always a good side to watch, always - by reputation - a good side to play for under Martinez, it just didn't go right this term. When they had to dig themselves out of trouble, the response was brilliant. Just too late. If Whelan can keep Martinez, and the core of the squad, they'll be back.

Reading (28pts, GD -30) 19th Relegated 

Have I mentioned dysfunctional clubs already? Oh well, have another one. Same story, promoted, start to flag, didn't invest, replaced the manager with almost a clone of his predecessor, and still found themselves going straight back down to the Championship. Sadly, Reading's Premier League season was simply one of underachievement, and they paid the price.

20th Queens Park Rangers (25 pts, GD -30) 20th Relegated 

Manchester City and Chelsea could easily look down the cliff face that is the Premier League and see QPR losing their grip and plummeting back to the Championship. While QPR's equally minted rivals have an infinitely stronger tenure on their elite league status, QPR's season has served as a stark reminder that, no matter how much money you throw at the problem, and even bringing in Harry Redknapp to work his Houdini magic, if you don't have your playing assets kicking the damn ball in the right manner, you will get sucked out of the top flight as fast as you were blown into it on a gilded magic carpet.

Things were a mess when Redknapp walked into Loftus Road, as Mark Hughes' heals were seen skidding off into the distance. Hughes, yet to truly demonstrate the same managerial form he had running Wales in his first coaching job, left his successor in November with a team who appeared happy to slide inexorably towards the Premier League exit, while continuing to cash Tony Fernandes generous cheques. Jose Boswinga - a flash-in-the-pan right-back at Chelsea - took on the mantle of representing best QPR's mercenary player profile, with his ridiculous refusenik stance showing that Redknapp had, like Lee Marvin in The Dirty Dozen (and forgive another war movie reference), been handed the worst of the worst.

While it may seem generous not to blame Redknapp, blame for result after lurid result must be placed squarely on the players' shoulders. For once, the accusation that a team gets a club relegated, not the manager, has been proven correct. If Fernandes has the ability to do so, he will let Redknapp rebuild in the Championship, while ruthlessly discarding those who patently don't want to be at QPR, haven't wanted to be there, and shouldn't be there any longer.

He's not the Messiah, just a very gifted footballer

In much of the world, we've become quite used to the commonly employed calendar system. We know that this is 2013 AD, and at some point in time there was a year 1AD.

Before that, we had the BC era, which goes back to, well, whenever somebody first named the years in decreasing numbers until you got to 1BC, skipping 0, clearly, because that would have meant having 0BD/AD as a year, which would have sounded like a blood group.

Fans of the England football team, however, follow a similar system to the Jewish calendar, ignoring conventional chronology. Orthodox followers of English football believe the modern era began in 1966. And it’s been downhill ever since.

1966 should have heralded a glorious new dawn, but it darkened pretty quickly. By 1972, in fact, when West Germany wrought revenge for the Wembley brouhaha involving a Russian linesman, and ejected England – not for the first time, either – from the European Championships that year. Worse was to come with failure to qualify at all for the 1974 World Cup, and again in 1978 when we all became honorary Scots, And so on, and so on, and so on..

So excuse the miracle-starved among us  for thinking there was a new Messiah abroad when, in 1998, a young boy danced through the Argentinian defence at the French-hosted World Cup match to score a wonder goal.

The boy was Michael Owen: born in Chester on December 14, 1979, and who this week announced his intention to retire at the end of this season. At the age of 11, he joined Liverpool as a schoolboy player, turning professional on his 17th birthday. By this stage there was already plenty of buzz about him. Was he The One? On his first-team debut for Liverpool, Owen scored against Wimbledon, setting the hopes, dreams and aspirations of a nation alive with his arrival.

And then came 30 June 1998. In Saint-Étienne (the French town, not the Sarah Cracknell-fronted indy electro darlings). Aged just 18, he pulled off the goal that had us all convinced he was The One. Collecting a pass from David Beckham, Owen set off on a winding run through the Argentina defence, snaking through it like a raging, coursing river, before letting fly just outside the penalty box, with the ball whistling past goalkeeper Carlos Roa.

While Beckham would get sent off just after half-time for his petulant kickout at the odious Gabriel Batistuta, and the game would end ingloriously on penalties (with Argentina progressing to the quarter-finals), that one goal would be burned in our memories as the start of something new.

The following season’s home Chelsea league fixture against Liverpool was a must-attend. We all wanted to see the wunderkind who’d lifted our hopes that summer.

For Liverpool, Owen would deliver 158 goals in 297 appearances (take note, F Torres). However, by the time the-then 26-year-old made a Mr. Big Pants move to Real Madrid, his star - even with such a prodigious goal record at Anfield - had already started to wain. Some say it had faded by the time he turned 21.

Today, Michael Owen may be preparing for retirement with a multitude of records to his name, but the one least likely to appear in his private trophy cabinet is the title of "Most Likely To Be Found On A Treatment Table". Like a footballing meteor lighting up the night sky, Owen's early promise did, let's be honest, fizzle somewhat, thanks to injuries which surely couldn't have been helped by being thrust onto the world stage so young.

Owen's switch to Madrid produced a solitary season of just 40 appearances with Galacticos like Zidane, Figo, Carlos and Raul, and a return of just 14 goals. But as inevitable as injuries were, part of the problem was the fit: he just missed the Premier League. Who can blame him?

Returning to England, Owen could have gone back to Liverpool: he wanted to, but the record shows that one Rafa Benitez wasn't interested. I'll say no more than that. Instead. Newcastle took him on, until a broken metatarsal playing for England at the end of 2005 led to a year out, and Owen was never the same player again, though 30 goals in 79 games for Newcastle is still not that bad. Sadly,

After Owen parted company with Newcastle in 2009, Sir Alex Ferguson took a punt and brought the striker to Manchester United. A 30-year-old striker is not necessarily a bad thing. Look at Didier Drogba. But at 30 Owen was, in Premier League years, and old man. Still, he gave Manchester United 17 strikes in 52 games, and another couple of seasons at a top club, before moving this season to Stoke for just seven appearances so far and a single goal.

No one, however, is that surprised Owen has chosen to retire at the and of this season. Injuries not withstanding, the fire that tore apart the Argentinian defence in 1998 has long since been reduced to a flickering flame.

You could argue that the 15 years since Saint-Étienne have seen diminishing returns. But let's not quibble too much. Some things aren't meant to last long: Jimi Hendrix only made three proper albums; The Beatles broke up less than 10 years into their recording career; and it is true that a Big Mac is over with too soon. If only for that one goal in France in 1998, we can be thankful that Michael Owen blazed. It was just a bit early, and didn't last long.

135 minutes late, tradition still intact

You really didn't want to be around me yesterday. Think of the most excited seven-year-old on Christmas morning, then amplify that level of annoying to the power of ten. Then you'd be getting close to what I was like. Then add in mild traces of hangover, thanks to indulging in White Russians with visiting rock stars at 2.30 in the morning.

I was probably best left alone, but that's pretty much how I should always be on FA Cup Final Saturday. I am just too excited by a spectacle, an event, an amassing of people around the world to watch a football match that will conclude several months of endeavour for both the biggest and the smallest teams in England.

This year, however, some chinless arse chose to move the fixture from its traditional kick-off to 5.15pm. 5.15pm on a Saturday is not a football kick-off time - it's when the news starts, or a Tom & Jerry cartoon, or some ghastly entertainment show with Noel Edmonds. Not the FA Cup Final.

The Cup Final kicks off at 3pm. End of discussion. It doesn't get moved to accommodate a lunchtime kickoff elsewhere, as there shouldn't be any other matches taking place on Cup Final Saturday. Nor should it be taking place at teatime simply to build an audience for Britain's Got Talent, or some other God-awful alleged talent show with a similarly grammatically-challenged name.

The FA Cup Final is more than just a football match. It is THE football match. It's a global event, watched around the world by 60 million people, the climax to the oldest football competition in the world. It is about tradition, which is why yesterday's final between Chelsea and Liverpool was about more than just whether it was a decent 90 minutes of football or not.

To the non-footballist, that might sound absurd, but the reason for my childlike skittishness each year - regardless of whether my team features in it or not - is what the Cup Final represents. Over successive years since I was a child, the Cup Final meant being in front of the TV at noon to watch the build-up - interviews with players present and old, the pundits and the minor celebrities who suddenly come out of the woodwork with a declared interest for one of the finalists or the other. Or Bruce Forsyth, who manages to turn up in any case.

Before the kick-off you have the obligatory live shots of the team buses arriving at Wembley, the players  walking across the Hallowed Turf™in their Cup Final suits, and then, as the teams start their warm-up routines, an hour or so of endless conjecture from anyone with a half-opinon about how the game will go.

Being at the game itself is a different experience altogether. There is nothing - nothing - to compare with hearing 80,000 people at Wembley singing Abide With Me followed by God Save The Queen (the original version, I should add, not the Sex Pistols' cover....) before the match gets underway, and then watching the incongruous sight of the regimental band of the Grenadier Guards criss-crossing the turf at half-time playing Colonel Bogey's March on something similarly rousing.

The "magic of the cup" might be a phrase you'll hear bandied about going back to the very early stages of the competition, when non-league clubs commence their well-intentioned efforts to proceed to later rounds when they might come up against professional league opposition.

And thus, come May, the denouement takes place at Wembley. It's a knockout competition, so the two teams have survived through guile, cunning and little luck along the way. They may not always be the best teams, either, but that doesn't matter, as the football is only just one component of Cup Final Saturday.

This year's Cup Final had an odd component to it, and not just because of the fact someone had tampered with the kick off time. Chelsea's season didn't seem to start until March 4, when Roberto Di Matteo was installed as "interim first team coach" and results, team unity and Fernando Torres' shooting boots all started to go the right way.

Liverpool have had a similarly indifferent season, with an expensive striker (Carroll) proving profligate in front of goal, and manager Kenny Dalglish - the closest thing to a saint, the Dalai Lama and royalty rolled into one person on Merseyside - facing questions from even the most loyal Scousers as to whether he is doing the right thing for the club.

By half-time yesterday, most pundits were commenting that the 131st FA Cup Final was a tepid affair. Ramires' clever goal putting Chelsea ahead at the interval, but that's all. When has this been ever different? It's hard to remember the last FA Cup Final that was an exciting display of football, of intelligent passing and clever build-play, of tactical ingenuity and perfect finishing. Watch any tie in the earlier rounds and you'll see 'win at any cost' being the motto. And that's why the Final itself is so much more the sum of its parts. Tradition, as I've said before, counts aplenty.

That Didier Drogba scored in his fourth FA Cup Final yesterday, that Ashley Cole has now amassed a record seven FA Cup winner's medals, and that Di Matteo became the third Italian manager in a row to win the trophy, on top of the fact he made records as a player (1997 - scoring for Chelsea on just 43 seconds), underlines the romance of the FA Cup and what it means to play or to watch it.

Yesterday's game may not have been perfect, but in many ways it was. Blues versus Reds, two teams who've played each other more than any one else over the last decade, a team that was going nowhere fast now competing for the two biggest club competitions in the game, and the seemingly fairytale of a caretaker manager who keeps pulling off remarkable successes (played 18, won 12, drawn 4, lost 2).

So it was a couple of hours late? The Magic of The Cup still exists. Roll on Munich.

A touch of class

There are some artists who will forever be associated with a certain geography, no matter where they end up. The Eagles will be forever southern California, largely because they were formed in Los Angeles, they all had beards, and their most famous hit was called Hotel California. Similarly, Liverpool and The Beatles will always be intertwined (even though they were all living in Surrey within three years of Love Me Do becoming a hit) while Manchester and New Order, the Stone Roses and Oasis are virtually interchangeable.

London also has its associated haunts: think Muswell Hill and The Kinks; Camden Town and Madness; Barking's very own 'Big Nosed Bard', Billy Bragg; Basildon and Depeche Mode; and without The Clash, Notting Hill would just be a West London neighborhood populated by people called Tristram who speak in a cod-patois and whose families own Lincolnshire.

People have made locational misassociations, too: Steely Dan were often considered the archetype West Coast group, even though songs like Hey Nineteen and Show Biz Kids - which had a Californian groove and were about LA themes - were written in New York's celebrated Brill Building.

Other locales go without association: Ripley is a post card-charming, sleepy English village in the county of Surrey. It bears little resemblance to the steaming cotton fields of Tennessee and Mississippi, and yet it is where the young Eric Clapton taught himself the blues of the American South, learning and ingraining himself in its poverty and woe. Ironically Paul Weller - who hates being compared to Clapton (and I mean, really hates being compared) has his recording studio in Ripley, a short drive away from the town of Woking where he grew up, absorbing all that it meant to be a working class mod in the 60s and early 70s.

Even so, you'd be hard pressed to associate either Clapton or Weller with a discernible 'Surrey sound'. Likewise, you'd struggle to see either as badge-wearing representatives of the English working class. Both would argue that class is how you carry yourself, rather than the logo on a shirt you wear.

Bruce Springsteen, on the other hand, is seen as nothing other than a working man's man. Cut him open and you'll find performance-grade STP motor oil coursing through his veins, his flesh made from pure denim. He is the very ideal of jeans-clad, workboot-wearing, plaid-shirted man of the people. And, in particular, a son of New Jersey.

Ever since his 1973 breakthrough, Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ, Springsteen has assumed the mantle of the American everyman, a stirling representative of the industrial north-eastern seaboard of America channelling the spirit of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger through tub-thumping, rousing songs about the real America, full of real Americans living real American lives.

New Jersey, for those who've never passed through it, isn't one giant steel plant. The Garden State is, in fact, a very pretty landmass fanning north and west and south from the Atlantic, with the Jersey side of New York City in one corner, and thousands upon sprawling thousands of acres of farmland radiating outwards. To the north-west of Newark lies the real Sopranos country around Orange County and towns like Montclair, while to the south are the hilly, Rockwellesque, white picketed communities of Essex, Somerset and Monmouth counties, stretching away from the hectic metropolitan. Springsteen himself now lives in the comfortable Jersey town of Colts Neck, a farming community where much of the farmland has been turned into golf courses, but is still just over ten miles away from coastal Long Branch where he was born and grew up, along with Asbury Park where his music career began in the slightly rough-and-ready Stone Pony pub.

This is, however, what makes Springsteen, Springsteen. Americans take him to heart because he is one of them. He is, as they are prone to stating, "meat and potatoes" - 'what-you-see-is-what-you-get'. He looks like them, dresses like them, talks like them. Whereas Eric Clapton, at one point, disappeared into a variety of fashion addictions including Armani suits, Versace shirts and hairstyles that were oddly bouffant for a man of middle age, Springsteen has steadfastly remained of his roots (and I'm not still talking about hair).

He has mostly transcended the cynicism associated with Bono for coining it in while singing about the human condition. That streak of avoidance is set to continue with the release this week of Springsteen's 17th studio album, Wrecking Ball, which extends a post-9/11 reflective state that began with The Rising, the 2002 album inspired by the events observed from across the Hudson that sunny September day the year before.

Wrecking Ball is the Springsteen album for the age of Occupy, and it is no surprise that he has cited the protests as a major ingredient to the album. It opens with the rowsing We Take Care Of Our Own, an uncompromising stadium stomp which largely does what it says on the tin - sentiments such as "We take care of our own/Wherever this flag's flown" and "From Chicago to New Orleans/From the muscle to the bone/From the shotgun shack to the Superdome." It's the sort of song that will at some point in the future, I'm sure, either be the soundtrack for an American political campaign or a recruiting ad for the US Marine Corps.

Easy Money might sound like a big ol' barnyard bluegrass hoedown, but there lies a deeper anger aimed at "...all them fat cats.." still creaming it in on Wall Street while "your whole world comes tumbling down". There is the strong suggestion that on the "far shore" of the Hudson (i.e. southern Manhattan...) the song's protagonist is likely to pitch up amongst the bankers with "...a Smith & Wesson 38..." with an account to settle. The American Way.

Like Peter Gabriel's bittersweet Don't Give Up, Springsteen's Jack Of All Trades adopts the same 'I'll do anything I can to keep the wolf from my door' approach, using a slow waltz and mournful brass to mount another scathing observation that American workers have been reduced to the self-sufficiency of clearing their own gutters and repairing their own cars, overstating that "the banker man grows fat, while the working man grows thin". In its lyrical simplicity - and clear homage to Guthrie's Depression-era songs - it holds another violent reference to having a gun "and shooting the bastards on sight", which is not the most responsible advice, given the propensity with which Americans scale clock towers armed with high-powered rifles when the going gets tough.

This downtrodden theme continues with Death To My Hometown, with its Celtic pipes and drums unashamedly drawing the north-eastern blue collar vote with a tale of urban blight, followed by This Depression, a sonic boom of of a song with a David Gilmour-style pitch-pedal guitar solo, a cold edge to its sound but a sympathetic warmth to its vocal.

The highlight of Wrecking Ball is its title track: arguably the most traditional 'Springsteen' song on the album, it reminds the listener, mid-way through, that the record is deliberately painting the bigger picture of 2012 America, that here is your humble rock star, "raised outta steel here in the swamps of Jersey", and that the rest of the set is his national perspective from this north-eastern enclave. As a good Springsteen song should, it has all the hallmarks of a great concert finale - all big brass (including, significantly, the final performance on a Springsteen album by the late Clarence Clemons) and woah-woah-woah choruses, the kind that fans will be singing long into the night as they crawl out of the stadium parking garage in their SUVs.

To return to the Springsteen look for a second, he has rarely changed his appearance, or his musical tone. He may have ranged from bombastic, Spector-style stage fillers to acoustic mountain folk, but the range of variation has never been shocking. There have been the occasional moments of pop, such as Dancing In the Dark (with that embarassing video featuring The Boss, sans-guitar and dressed as if a stylist attacked him a dark alley, plucking a rather gauche pre-Friends Courtney Cox from the audience to 'groove' into the evening with her).

The title track marks a turning point in the album, as if marking an intentional interval before things take what sounds like an experimental turn. Rocky Ground opens with samples and a drum machine before opening up into a feel-good slice of Gospel. Unfortunately it feels less satisfying, sounding more like a high school stage production that has pursuaded Bruce Springsteen to phone in a few lines.

Land Of Hope And Dream returns to something more Bruce-like, big drums and big theatre (and an undercurrent of Curtis Mayfield's People Get Ready), before We Are Alive blows dust off the Great American Songbook with a campfire singalong from somewhere along the frontier trail, borrowing, I suspect, from Johnny Cash's Ring Of Fire as well as a pinch of Marriachi. All very rootsy.

I've always been amazed by the ignorance with people have misappropriated Springsteen's Born In The USA as flag-waving patriotic bombast when anyone with half a brain would know that it was about the toxicity with which soldiers felt on returning to their homeland from Vietnam. It's unlikely that Springsteen sought to redress this with American Land, the closing track of Wrecking Ball, but I'm sure it will do the job nicely. It springs about to an Irish jig, capturing the spirit of Gangs Of New York and the New World hope of Ellis Island and what a jolly old place it is with "diamonds in the sidewalk, the gutter's lined in song/Dear, I hear that beer flows through the faucets all night long". It may not knock The Pogues' Fairytale Of New York off the shamrock charts, but with St. Paddy's night coming up in a couple of weeks, it would certainly make the Guinness flow with just a little more swing than The Best of Enya.

Odd, then, that this treatise of a Bruce Springsteen album should end up in almost cartoon "Begorrah, begorrah!" territory. Springsteen has Irish blood in him, along with the Dutch of his father's name and a mix of Italian from his mother, These are qualifications that, from one side of the American Dream, cast him as an American thoroughbred, with more right than any to look upon his country with a mixture or pride and disdain.

There are, then, many symbols of America, the country which invented branding. You could say that the White House, the New York skyline, Mount Rushmoor, the Lincoln Memorial, the beaches of LA, the deserts of Arizona, the art deco of South Beach, the steel factories of Pittsburgh - I could go on - all symbolise perfectly what America is about.

But at its simplest, Bruce Springsteen is America. America is Bruce Springsteen. Meat and potatoes. A denim-clad toiler, pumping away at a blond Fender Esquire, singing "There's treasure there for the taking, for any hard working man, who will make his home in the American Land."