Two players with completely grey hair in the Cardiff team, too.

Anyway, a decent enough game - tough lines to the Cardiff mob. Portsmouth just about shaded it, though.

Why are they playing pop music as Pompey lift the cup? Why have they ruined everything?

Oh my god, they're playing Mike Oldfield's "Portsmouth"! I thought I was gonna look up and see Blue Tulip Rose Read barking like a dog.

A thoroughly engrossing 90 minutes of what will surely go down as the 'Peter Whittingham wiping the ball on his shirt' Cup Final.

Can barely hear Hansen et. al. for Jeff Beck

i thought capaldi did most of the wiping. like riise and a few others, he should have a panel of towelling built into his shirt

crap game i thought, only the fact the cardiff were still in it to the end was in its favour

Yeah, last year's was much better

Great shame. Does English football have a more revolting combination on a bench than the Harry Rednapp / Tony Adams duo? Eeuuurggh. It quite puts you off your tea, seeing those two on the screen.

That premiership cynicism really shone out didn't it - every time Cardiff had a counter they just got hacked down at the half way line.

Was it over confidence of the cup engraver to be writing Portsmouths name ont he cup with 4 mins plus stoppage to play? Congrates to the Pompy fans on the board and comissorations to the Cardiff ones - at least you got 2 no doubt expensive days out at Wembley this season I guess. Just had confirmation of my tickets for next week and I would very much take a scrappy 1-0 win next Sunday...

Commiserations to the Cardiff boys. Although Pompey just shaded it for me. It was ten times better than last years final and Im predicting it'll be better than next wednesdays affair as well.
Ledley & Ramsey look as good as their hype suggests, its the first time Ive seen them and Im impressed. I hope a stretch in the reserve team of a big 4 club isnt their next move though. Ramsey looks about 30 as well tbh.

Shame Cardiff sort of ran out of steam in the second half, and were too jittery in front of goal, but still a better final than four of the previous five - and miles better than last year's of course, as others have said.

Commiserations to the Cardiff crew

last year was awful i agree but i fail to see how this was that much better, unless it was purely for the novelty of seeing some different teams there

as for other recent finals, liverpool v west ham and man utd v arsenal were both far better games

Christ, what was going on with Tony Adams' face? It was like his skin was trying to slink away out of depression; he's going to be one ugly old man.

He's never exactly been Brad Pitt as a young man.

Anyway, it was a pity that both teams - and it was both teams, to be fair - ran out of steam and effort after sixty minutes. I still don't understand why Cardiff's "equalizer" was disallowed just before half time, handball my arse, the ref should have let that stand just to make the second half more of a nailbiter.

(Yeah, yeah, "rules", and all that. Arse. Let's make a spectacle of a game).

It's a pity that tomorrow's papers are going to stress that it was, ultimately, a boring and forgettable final, because there were was more open play and real drama in the first twenty minutes of today than there was in the whole of last year's bore-fest between Man United and Chelsea, the top two teams in Europe over the last twelve months.

Commiserations to Harry, rick, Chairman and the rest; and congratulations to any Portsmouth fans we might have on the board.

I thought Cardiff did about as well as could have been expected, but just missed a few too many of their half-chances. Ramsey looked like he perhaps should have come on a bit earlier, and Hasselbaink was out of legs long before he was taken off.

I watched the game on the big-screen at Cardiff Bay - very nice to see such a properly multicultural crowd down there, which is something you don't really get watching rugby (or football) internationals in Cardiff.

SR: I don't know the name of the guy who did the piece on growing up as a football fan in South Wales, but he presents 'Soccer Sunday' on HTV Wales. From what I could hear, it seemed very good.