POOR old FA Cup. At least last night Manchester United and Everton had the stage largely to themselves. Unless you were a Bundesliga fanatic keen to watch Schalke take on Bayer Leverkusen or an Atletico Madrid fetishist, there was nothing else on at the same time.

By comparison, not only are today’s semi-finalists – Crystal Palace and Watford – decidedly B-list, but they are up against table-topping Leicester City and their march towards a date with the greatest, most improbable achievement in the history of sport.

So much has been written over the years about the magic of the FA Cup and how it is now an undercard to a Premier League race and an appetiser to the Champions League and even, if you are a Liverpool fan, the Europa League. Others have suggested that maybe this is the current function of the FA Cup and there is nothing wrong with that: a chance for England’s middle-tier to pursue some lasting memories.

It may be a patronising view, but that doesn’t make it invalid. In fact, in some ways, it speaks right to the raison d’etre of a football club in this polarised landscape, where the wealthy have wage bills three or more times as high as the rest.

Watford and Palace won’t ascend to regular top-four or top-six status. It doesn’t matter that the former have progressive owners with clubs in three different leagues, whose tried and tested global scouting network has helped one of them, Udinese, reach the Champions League on multiple occasions.

Or that the latter are now owned by legitimate multi-billionaires and have London’s huge catchment area to grow their brand and fan base.

The fact is the system is stacked against social mobility beyond an occasional, Twilight-Zone-type exploit like Leicester this year. And that matters more today than it did 20 or 30 years ago, for the simple reason that the path to fandom has changed.

Sure, for many it is still about your local club or the one to which you have family ties. But ticket prices, folks moving about the country and, above all, the ubiquity of media coverage – televised and via the web – mean many become fans in other ways. And if TV and media coverage are what’s going to hook you into supporting one club or another, you are more likely to opt for the guys who get the most coverage and who tend to win regularly.

That is why so many with no ties to Merseyside became Liverpool fans in the 1980s. And Manchester United fans in the 1990s. And Chelsea fans last decade.

Globally, of course, you are even less likely to have local or family ties. Which means you will gravitate to the big boys.

Once upon a time, when clubs drew most of their income from the match-going public, that was less of an issue. Now that the bulk comes from far-flung places and you really can monetise the passion of a fan in Bangladesh or Bolivia, the equation has changed.

So that is why it matters. Maybe a child with no ties to either club will catch this game and the final on TV and fall in love. Maybe he or she will encounter a group of fans singing and wearing colours and be drawn into the carnival.

And maybe, for the 12-year-old whose Palace dad prattles on incessantly about the 1990 FA Cup final – Brighty, Wrighty and Pards – but who at school tells friends he supports Arsenal because, well, they are much cooler, maybe days like today will define the rest of his football-supporting life. For the better.

SPEAKING of Leicester, for three consecutive weeks they will be playing before Tottenham, who play tomorrow night. Last week, Leicester drew with West Ham, today they face Swansea and next week they travel to Old Trafford. All on a Sunday.

Spurs beat Stoke last week, they host West Brom tomorrow and next week they travel to face Chelsea. All on a Monday.

It is not necessarily something that provides either club with an advantage, but it does make you wonder about the Premier League scheduling and what it may have looked like if Tottenham had not been knocked out of the Europa League.

IT’S hard to understand the statement released by Randy Lerner, majority owner of Aston Villa. Much of the media interpreted it as the American taking responsibility for the club’s relegation, but his use of words ranges from the ambiguous to the odd.

“This relegation lies at my feet and no one else’s.” Is he really saying it is his fault? Or is he saying it’s a fait accompli that he has to deal with, which is certainly the meaning in American English?

Odder still was when he talked about the memories that “nourished” him. Seeing “Acorns” – a charity – on the shirts (rather than, I guess, some commercially-minded sponsor). And Ashley Young scoring a 90th minute winner in a 3-2 win away to Everton in December 2008. Is this the best he can come up with in nearly a decade of ownership?

That said, for all the contempt hurled at Lerner for his role in the relegation, it must also be said that, unlike some owners, he put his money where his mouth is. He bought the club for £64 million in 2006. Since then, the club made losses of around £250m. Last year, when nobody was thinking of relegation, he was ready to sell the club for £150m, meaning he was ready to personally suck up a loss of £164m.

The extraordinary part is that, according to the financial blogger Swiss Ramble, during his tenure the club made a profit of some £60m on player sales.

Which only serves to leave you scratching your head and wondering where that money went. And whether Aston Villa might not be one of the most mis-managed clubs in recent history.