FA Cup? My a***!

Jan 6 2008 by Neil Farrington, Sunday Sun

“AH, FA Cup third round weekend,” said the bloke ahead of me in the canteen queue this week, “magical, eh?”

He doubtless expected a warm and jocular reply, as is the custom for a casual acquaintance encountered in a canteen queue. Something along the lines of “isn’t it? Jumpers for goalposts and all that . . .”

He was disappointed.

“Magic?” I asked. “Can you tell me the last non-league club to make it beyond the third round, and when?”

Unsurprisingly, as he’d only nipped away from his desk for a ham and cheese toastie, he was at a loss.

“Scarborough, 2004,” I said. “And look what’s happened to them since.”

I then informed him just three non-league clubs have even made it to round three in the last two years (Tamworth last season, Chasetown and Havant this).

“And are Chasetown’s or Havant’s games live on the telly? Are they chuff. Where’s the magic in watching Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United for the 15th consecutive weekend, eh?

But I wasn’t finished.

“I’ll tell you about the magic of the FA Cup,” I ranted on, as yer man began to fidget and grin nervously. “Did you know that MK Dons, a League Two club, put out a weakened side in round one so they’d be at full-strength for a Football League Trophy tie?

“Paul Ince is in charge of them. And what was the first trophy he won as a player? The FA Cup. Magical? My a***!”

It was then I realised I’d been ranting to a backdrop of absolute silence among a dozen or so other diners looking at me as though I was, well, out to lunch.

But then the truth is often hard to swallow.