Anyone watching? It's a great game so far with both sides scoring within the first twelve minutes but United are lucky to have all eleven men on the park as Vidic should have been sent off for his challenge on Gobby.

I thought the dirty viler dived when he saw the defender's leg.

And vilers' ginger centre half should have seen red when he brought down Owen in full flow - he denied a goalscoring opportunity.

Vidic was wearing more of gobby's shirt by the time he went down = penalty. he was the lasty defender as he was going directly on goal = Sending off.

And what about the other end when Owen was through????

He couldn't send him off after allowing Vidic to stay on could he? But I'm amazed that Vidic didn't even get carded for that. Dowd bottled it big time.

Good even contest though, these finals are normally bore-fests but this has the makings of a classic.

I've had to switch to BBC, Andy Claret & Blue was too overbearing..

Ironic cheers from the Villa fans as Evra becomes the first United player to receive yellow (the card, not a 7" single by Coldplay).

41 minutes in and Fergie brings on Rooney for Owen who unfortunately for him has pulled something. That'll teach him to start..

JS Park pings it in and it rebounds off the post and gets cleared away. Half time 1-1. Good game, good game.

Pitch looks shocking, mind..

2nd hlaf gets under way and within minutes Brad Fried egg pulls off a brilliant save from Dimunitive Berbatov. Meanwhile, down at the other end Ashley Young thinks about doing a Keith Fahey before changing his mind.

What? Signing for a decent club?

The game's opening up like a daffodil in early spring with both sides going for it. Downing looks streets ahead of Evans down the left while Rooney remains menacingly quiet, that's if you can look menacing and quiet at the same time, loike..

Substitution on 65 mins as United become Rafael-light, to be replaced by the ugliest man in football, Gary Neville. It's still 1-1 and the chances have dried up like a daffodil that hasn't been watered.

The Villa fans are chanting for John Carew. Do they not know he's not playing?

65 minutes after he should have been sent off, Vidic finally gets carded for another challenge on Gobby. It's all Villa at the minute.

Great build up between Valencia and Dimmy and a perfect cross to Wayne Rooney who scores a brilliant header. And now United look threatening every time they get the ball. 15 Rumbelow minutes left, Villa will have to bring the cavalry on in a bit..

Rooooooooooooooney

What a player!

At least we now know that Warnock is shocking, or is that just that Valencia is brilliant? Rooney has another header on goal that kisses the post and bounces out.

Enter stage left the cavalry, in the form of big John Carew, comes on for Cuellar de Ville.. Is it too late? Is there still time? Why am I talking to myself?

Stoppage time has been entered and with a dash over a minute left Villa have a last chance saloon deep in the Utd half but Gobby heads it just wide. Whistles ring out from the red, yellow and green side of Wembley and the referee finally agrees with them and it's all over bar the shouting about why Vidic wasn't sent off..

... and why the ginger viler didn't join him for an early bath.

I thought overall Man Utd deserved to win it but congratulations to both teams for making what is usually a dour affair a very entertaining game..

I don't like either of them, the first final since Man United v Milwall, where I hoped both teams would lose.

It was a good game especially viewed from a table in the lounge of The Loves public house in Durham accompanied by a metric pint of your Marstons Green Pedigree and a post modern pint of Kronenberg for Bluerain. To be fair Man.U could have run out 4-1 winners and Fergie leaving Rooney on the bench just showed the gulf between the two sides. Although he's a viler I do like the look of Ashley Young, he oozes class at times you know. Great result though and nice to think of the vilers travelling all the way back to Worcester and Dudley having lost.

Watched the game on Sky HD but oh ! Christ this winging wailing pompous self-righteous one eyed smarmy faced Andy Gray , to suggest at the end of the game that the vile 'didn't have any luck' was beyond all realistic belief..!..apart from the controversial incident with Vidic the vile had two real pieces of luck when Utd. hit the inside of the post and the ball ran very kindly to the vile to clear the ball on both occasions and the vile could have easily conceded a penaly with an hand ball by Milner (Arsenal had a very similar penalty yesterday),but of course this ex viler tosser makes no reference to those issues at all, I wonder if this prat Gray wears his claret and blues glasses when he goes to bed,or what's more to the point does he ever take them off,..??
K.R.O.

Sid, claret and blue glasses are just sooooooooo 1980's. Nowadays the modern trendy biased pundit chooses claret and blue high definition 3D contacts loike.

K.R.O.

I couldn't bring myself to wtaching them in a cup final, not no way, not ever. I even managed to avoid the result until around 7pm when my brother called round. Sod all this 'fed up of seeing Man U winniing eveything' talk. I'd pick the villa to lose everytime.

The win for Manchester means the sixth place side in the Premier League will qualify for the UEFA Cup (now known as the Europa League!)


EDIT: I think that should read 'the seventh placed side'

They said that this was the first time that Man Utd had ever retained a cup competition.

I was quite suprised but couldn't think of a time when they had.

I thought there were Champions League spots for the top 4 and a Europa spot for the fifth placed team. The League Cup winners' Europa spot will now shift to the sixth placed team, won't it? Then there is still the FA Cup winners' Europa spot to be decided, based on who wins that piece of famous silverware.
But if I am wrong, I will be pleased to hear it, as these European places and BCFC do appear to be converging. It's a collision course that is quite enticing.

A bloke I know told me he has been friends with a couple of viler family for many years and there is always a bit of banter and such going on, they were all down Wembley for the game yesterday so he recorded the game and put the final score down on tape when the commentator said 2.1 to Man.Utd. etc.,he also has an old copy on tape of 'The Laughing Policeman' ,he then linked it up with about 10 seconds of 'laughing' and played the tape on 'leave a message' on their answerphones ,but he said to me he had enough stick in the past,so they can have a bit back ..!
K.R.O.