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Of course, it wasn't. Indeed, it just lived up to the tradition that the more you look forward to a game, the more disappointing it will be. This is what separates sport from entertainment, as you are never remotely guaranteed anything when you watch a football match, when compared to a film or a gig, and there is far more room for disappointment, even if you are watching a neutral and don't have any strong emotional connection to either of the teams involved.

Speaking of which, the empty seats in the VIP section at Wembley throughout the game must have been an embarassment for the FA, particularly as they are placed right on the halfway line opposite the TV cameras. When you consider that the Club Wembley members had already effectively paid for their seats for this showpiece event, that so many decided not to bother was hardly a ringing endorsement for the People's Cup Final, and the FA will have been wincing every time the cameras showed the clusters of empty red seats.

Of course, only the most elderly of Portsmouth and Cardiff City fans had ever seen their teams in an FA Cup Final at Wembley before, so there were no spare seats in their sections, but both sets of supporters failed to do their bit before the game when Katherine Jenkins and Lesley Garrett sang the Welsh and English national anthems respectively. There was little respect shown, with boos ringing out from each set of fans for the opposition's anthem, so this year's Final will surely go down as the first where God Save The Queen was actively booed.

After the tedium of last year's Final, the main hope for all neutrals this year was that these two teams could provide a bit more entertainment, though the Portsmouth team sheet offered no real hint that it would be an open game. Nwankwo Kanu was put up front on his own for a team who scored only six goals in their run to the Final (and one of them was an own goal), with a midfield behind him that was heavy in industry but light on real creative talents. And this from the favourites...

The first half began with Cardiff making most of the running, as West Brom had done in the semi-final against Pompey, and Paul Parry should have shown better judgement when he ran onto a through-ball and shot against David James when he should have taken a touch to either take it round the keeper or get brought down to win a penalty. At the other end, Kanu did take the ball round Peter Enckelman, but hit the post from an acute angle to give Cardiff a real let-off.

Unfortunately for the underdogs, Enckelman would not get another let-off in a nervy display by the on-loan Blackburn Rovers keeper. Every time a cross came in, he batted it away like the ball was a hand grenade, and his lack of conviction cost him and Cardiff dearly when he succeeded only in setting up Kanu for a tap-in goal in the 37th minute. Given their defensive solidity and tactical set-up, this was exactly what the Final didn't need, and everyone's (well, apart from Portsmouth fans) worst fears were confirmed after the break.

It could have been very different, of course, if Cardiff's goal before half-time hadn't been disallowed, but no matter how impressive Glenn Loovens' effort had been, he had clearly gained an advantage from the ball hitting his arm after a flap from David James. England's number one made costly errors in both of his previous Cup Final appearances, but luck was on his side this time and you just started to sense that the Bluebirds had missed their best chance to get back in the game.

After half-time, there was precious little action, with Parry and the ineffectual Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink (whose main contribution was a series of unconvincing dives) failed almost entirely to offer any threat of an equaliser. Things livened up slightly when young Welsh prodigy Aaron Ramsey was brought on, but the rock-solid Pompey defence stood firm, meaning that Cardiff only managed three shots on target in the whole match and cannot really have any complaints about their defeat, even if they had been the better team in the first half.

And so, Harry Redknapp got his hands on the FA Cup and everyone could feel good that someone other than Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool or Arsenal had won it. History will almost certainly look back on the 2008 FA Cup Final as a rare moment for the 'little people' to stand in the spotlight and as a good old-fashioned match, but that will be conveniently obscuring most of the reality of what was a fairly dull game between two teams lacking either the attacking intent or the quality. But it was still better than last year...

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