blades blog Woofoo Tai Po - eat in or takeaway?

Posted: April 24th 2009
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So come on then, what do you fancy?  Woofoo Tai Po, Kitchee, Happy Valley or a Sheffield United?

Hong Kong’s top football teams come together next month to take part in their annual FA Cup competition organised by the Hong Kong Football Association.

Nothing unusual there, you may think, until you hear that this year’s competition, the 2008/09 Hong Kong FA Cup has been renamed as the Sheffield United FA Cup because the Blades have stumped up the sponsorship cash.

Announced as a groundbreaking sponsorship deal, it’s been done because of our ownership of the Chinese club Chengdu Blades (the first foreign ownership of a Chinese football club, by the way). At the launch Blades chairman Kevin McCabe is reported to have said: “It is a great honour for Sheffield United and Chengdu Blades to be invited to sponsor the Hong Kong FA Cup. It demonstrates our commitment to supporting the growth of football in China and Hong Kong, whilst we continue to make the ‘Blades’ a global football proposition.”

Priceless eh?  As we pick over the remains of an annihilated global economy, as we face paying back countless billions that we used to shore up the banking system, as Sheff Utd mount one final last push to get back to the Prem this season, the club decides to sponsor the FA Cup in Hong Kong to the tune of $225,000 Hong Kong dollars (around £20,000) in prize money.

It’s been done because not only do we own Chengdu Blades, who play in the Chinese Super League, but our Chengdu reserve side plays in the Hong Kong First Division and is known as Sheffield United Hong Kong.

In the history of the HK FA Cup 11 different teams have won the cup since 1975 with 9-time champions South China being the most successful. Current cup holders are Citizen who beat Wofoo Tai Po 2-0 in the 2008 final played at the Hong Kong Stadium.

But surely this begs a question. Should we enjoy a successful cup run (and there are only 16 teams in the first round) does this not throw up the potential of Sheffield United Hong Kong winning the Sheffield United FA Cup and doesn’t that all sound just the least bit narcissistic?

Perhaps, stung by the West Sham fiasco and thwarted by years of yo-yo-ing between the top two English tiers, the Utd Board have decided to create a Prisoner-type world, a South East Asian Port Merion where we, Sheffield United win all the trophies we’ve sponsored, where we Sheffield United, come top of all the leagues we’ve funded and where we, Sheffield United eventually rule the world, or as Chairman McCabe put it, “become a global football proposition”.

Perhaps, if we fail to get promoted this year, the plan is to transfer the entire first team squad to Hong Kong, managed by celebrity Hongkonger Jackie Chan, playing an entertaining brand of Shaolin soccer where Chris Morgan will elbow seven types of crap out of diminutive Chinese centre forwards and each match will start with a rendition of The Greasy Dim Sum.

Or perhaps, this is actually the first usage of the West Ham millions coming our way? Invest all the West Ham cash in football clubs all over the world. Where next? Let’s head North West, Mongolia, the Kazakhstan FA Cup? Better still, let’s stay in East Asia and broker a peace deal with North Korea by funding their FA Cup Final, which will of course, be won by Sheffield United North Korea (SUNK) in the Kim ll Sung Bramall Lane Stadium.

Thankfully, its just the elite teams that play in the Hong Kong FA Cup. Top of the 2nd div Shatin (clever word play joke becoming almost irresistible) are one of the lucky 16 in the first round but the exotically named Double Flower, Tung Po and Wing Yee have missed out this time round.

Brian Leung, Chairman of Hong Kong Football Association, invited Kevin McCabe and Tony Xu, Chairman of Chengdu Blades, to draw the first round of the HKFA Sheffield United FA Cup. Cynic and conspiracy theorist that I am, this raised my suspicions.

Chances of us actually winning the Sheffield United FA Cup are slim –Sheffield United Hong Kong (SUHK) have so far this season won 5, drawn 5 and lost 11 in the First Division. But the draw by our own erstwhile people, has pitted is in the first round against Sham Shui Po (sounding very much like one of the Tellytubbies), who are the sole representative in draw from the lowly 3B Division and therefore presumably softer opposition. We open our account at the Mong Kok (don’t even think about a double entendre or possible newspaper headline) Stadium on 16th May.

The Final of the HKFA Sheffield United FA Cup will be hosted at the Hong Kong Stadium on Sunday 31 May 2009. I wonder if anyone in Hong Kong has ever heard of Sheffield?