Another year, another dismal FA Cup Final. Was anyone surprised?
Ever since the Champions League became the money-spinning Holy Grail of European football, the Cup Final has meant less and less to those who can't remember when the television coverage used to start at 10am with Cup Final It's A Knockout.
Now, it appears that the players and managers see it as just another game at the end of another over-long season, albeit one with a nice big bonus at the end of it for the winners.
These days, I'm far more interested in the FA Cup at the other end of the season, where starry-eyed non-league players battle for their chance of a day in the big time and club officials hope for the one big pay-day that might change their club's fortunes.
And what kind of competition is it where the interest diminishes as the final gets closer?
Personally, the last FA Cup Final that sticks in my mind was the last one to be played at the old Wembley.
Those of you in the claret-and-blue corner of the web will recall that the 2000 final featured Aston Villa losing to Chelsea, courtesy of a goal by Roberto di Matteo.
Given that regular readers will know that my professional football allegiances lie with Birmingham City, you might identify that as the reason it sticks in my mind. You'd be wrong. Every time I look in the mirror, I can tell you you're wrong.
Let me explain.
The week before that final seven years ago, a friend of mine hatched a cunning plan. Watching the game in a pub in Tamworth (and after all, you have to watch the Cup Final in a pub, don't you? You can't have the other half asking you to help put the washing out) would have meant watching it amongst hordes of Villa fans - and neither of us wanted that. After all, they might win the thing and then where would we be?
So he decided that we were going to watch it somewhere unusual. We were coming in to Birmingham to watch it in one of those pubs around St Andrew's where the skeletons of long-dead Villa fans hang on meat-hooks in the back yard; where the television on the wall would be wrapped in blue scarves; where we could safely sing that song about the Villa without starting a riot.
As I recall, the total audience in this particular pub amounted to ourselves and the landlord; clearly, the blue half of Birmingham had decided to do something else with the afternoon, like grouting the bathroom or creosoting the garden shed.
Consequently, we had a fine old time. We swapped stories with the landlord, endorsed our credentials as card-carrying members of the Campaign for Real Ale and celebrated loudly when Signor di Matteo rippled the net behind David James. Then, we reluctantly headed home.
Now, I will maintain until my dying day that it was running down the Coventry Road towards the bus stop in a heavy rain shower that caused me to trip and fall. I would have fallen over that uneven paving stone even if I'd been drinking lemonade all afternoon.
Whatever the case, my gashed top lip was still bleeding when I arrived home, drenched and depressed, an hour later, glumly holding a tissue to my face....and somehow, Mrs W wouldn't accept that I was fit and healthy.
Neither would the nurse on Saturday evening duty in the A&E department at our local hospital, who just happened to be a regular at our church and a good friend of my mother-in-law.
Neither would my boss at the time (a Villa fan, would you believe?) when I arrived, bloodstained and still slightly shocked, in the office on the Sunday afternoon.
That is not the reason why I am the only Post blogger without what we in the trade call a picture byline, but if you study my features closely enough, you can still see the scars seven years and three days later.
So perhaps you'll forgive me if the FA Cup Final doesn't quite hold the attraction it did 30 years ago.