I understand exactly what you're saying. I too was at the final in ’74, although weirdly I seem to have excised it from my memory, because I can recall nothing specific about that match, other than that we lost. (I was also at the ’81 match — too young for ’69 — so I wasn't too lucky with seeing us win finals until we beat Arsenal in, yes, the League Cup in 2018! So I have a particular affection for the competition…)
It's worth repeating that it was the last serious trophy we won — with that memorable goal from Tueart — before we started the long drift into the crossing of the wilderness that lasted for twenty years (or more, depending on how you look at it).
But let's look at it clear sightedly. Yes, the League Cup will be abandoned. But let's tell it like it is — it will have, in effect, been forced out, by the greed of the PL, the greed of UEFA, the greed of FIFA. With all the extra games in competitions that truly don't interest me very much (especially the League of Nations, which UEFA pulled from their arse, and which it took a while for me to even understand what it was, vacuous European club competitions like the Europa Conference League, the ever-expanding cash cow or goose that lays the not very golden egg in the form of the Champions League, the now expanding World Club Championship) there are now just too many games for players at the top clubs, especially those in England, and I do believe we're seeing the results in terms of injuries.
The League Cup was never the premier competition of course, but it was an indigenous competition, by and for the members of the four divisions that make up the English football league. As such it shouldn't be sneered at, by anyone.
And yes — with a heavy heart — I am resigned to us throwing this match, because I just don't see what alternative there is. But I repeat: we the fans, and the players, and the clubs, have been railroaded by governing bodies that we appear to have absolutely no control over. Gradually, I think, I'm falling out of love with football.
