By Simon Wright – Follow me on Twitter @Siwri88
The FA Cup, the world’s greatest football competition continues this weekend with the second round proper and in a new series for the website from round one until the final at Wembley next May; I will share my memories of what has made the competition so special to me and many football fans up and down the land.
These stories can be one of personal achievement, a huge surprise against the odds, even something like a game played in freezing temperatures or a weekend where the underdog ripped up the formbook.
It is the second round proper this weekend and the final hurdle for the non-league sides before they can potentially dream about facing one of the big boys in the third round with the draw for this taking place on Sunday.
My first of two FA Cup memories to mark this stage of the competition goes back to the incredible fourth round weekend in January 2013 that was among the wildest in the history of the great competition. It was a weekend where reputations counted for nothing and a mad 72 hours of surprises, upsets and a reminder to never underestimate the power of the underdog.
The first tie of the weekend saw Championship side Millwall add to Paul Lambert’s misery at Aston Villa. Off the back of humiliation in the League Cup semi-finals to Bradford City three days earlier, Lambert cut a rather forlorn figure as he watched his youngsters crash out of the competition at The Den, losing 2-1. While it will go down in the record books as an upset, it wasn’t totally unexpected given Villa’s lack of form and confidence. However, that was the first of several shocks in the coming days.
Next up on Saturday lunchtime was a repeat of the 2011 FA Cup final and what turned out to be a turgid affair between Stoke City and Manchester City was negotiated in the closing stages by the favourites. Pablo Zabaleta struck the winner of a poor game with just four minutes remaining to guide City into round five.
At three o’clock on that Saturday afternoon, more surprises were about to be created. Premier League bottom side QPR crumbled spectacularly against League One opposition. After 52 minutes, Harry Redknapp’s side were trailing Milton Keynes Dons 4-0 on their own turf. Although they clawed the scoreline back to 4-2 by the final whistle, it was one of the Dons best ever performances and they took the acclaim of all sides of the ground. For Redknapp, it compounded his problems as the Hoops were slipping out of the top flight without much resistance and had now gone out meekly of the FA Cup.
Another amazing story was taking place at Carrow Road where Conference National outfit Luton Town (pictured celebrating) were dumping out Premier League opposition in Norwich City. Scott Rendell struck the decisive goal 10 minutes from the end infront of the stunned Canaries supporters. Luton became the first club from the non-league to defeat opposition from the top tier of the league pyramid since Sutton United dumped Coventry City out in round three 24 years earlier. They fully deserved their success too.
Fellow non-leaguers Macclesfield Town weren’t so lucky. They were edged out by Wigan Athletic at Moss Rose, with a Jordi Gomez early penalty settling the tie between the two teams. Even then, no-one could forecast how far Wigan would go in the 2013 edition of this great competition.
Others teams were lucky to avoid an upset. Championship side Brighton pushed Arsenal all the way at the AMEX Stadium but were denied a replay by Theo Walcott’s spectacular goal as the Gunners scraped through into round five in a five-goal thriller. Middlesbrough needed a strike in the sixth minute of time added on by Lukasz Jutkiewicz to defeat Aldershot Town 2-1 infront of just under 13,000 at a sparsely populated Riverside and Everton also required an injury time winner from Jonny Heitinga to put Bolton out 2-1. Both Bolton and Brighton had already claimed higher profile scalps in the previous round in the shape of Sunderland and Newcastle United respectively. There were no problems for Manchester United though, as they crushed Fulham 4-1 in the Saturday evening match.
If Saturday had produced its stories, Sunday was just absolutely extraordinary. First up was a London derby involving Brentford and Chelsea at Griffin Park. The cup holders fell behind twice and looked set for an embarrassing exit until Fernando Torres unlocked some of the genius that has been missing far too much since his move from Liverpool nearly three years ago. The Spanish striker’s effort 10 minutes from time rescued a replay for the Blues and they ultimately won that 4-0 three weeks later. Brentford’s best chance had gone but they had caused an almighty scare for their much richer and classier rivals.
Two hours later and Tottenham Hotspur weren’t so lucky. Andre Villas-Boas changed his side around and it backfired badly against a motivated Leeds United, who had already eliminated Everton and Southampton from the League Cup earlier in the campaign. Luke Varney and Ross McCormack scored the goals as Spurs were ousted 2-1 in Yorkshire in a team that still had Gareth Bale in its ranks.
If Leeds thought that was the biggest upset of the weekend, they were to be usurped by Oldham Athletic in the final tie of a monumental few days. Oldham were near the foot of the League One table and boss Paul Dickov had seen his entire staff sacked earlier in the month. Despite having won at Nottingham Forest in round three, the Latics were given no chance by anyone against a Liverpool side that had won five of their last seven matches and boasted a strong strikeforce in new signing Daniel Sturridge and Luis Suarez. From the first moment on a blustery afternoon at Boundary Park, Oldham wanted it more. Matt Smith terrorised the central defenders Martin Skrtel and Sebastien Coates, scoring twice before half-time to have fans dreaming of an upset at the interval. On loan defender Reece Wabara then headed a crucial third early in the second half to make the impossible look very possible. Steven Gerrard was thrown on by Brendan Rodgers and despite a late rally from the Reds, with Joe Allen’s deflected strike 10 minutes from the end, Oldham held on for a famous 3-2 victory and gave Liverpool fans one of the blackest days in their proud FA Cup history.
Fourth round weekend was breathtaking from start to finish in 2013 and reminded us all of why we love the FA Cup. While there will be more tales of underdog beating multi-millionaires in the future, it will have to be something special to beat this unbelievable weekend of football.
What happened to some of the key figures on that weekend?
The winner of Luton’s goal at Norwich, Scott Rendell was transfer listed in April and after a trial at Torquay United was ended by injury this summer, is now on loan at Woking.
Fresh from his exploits against Liverpool, Matt Smith scored another two goals in round five as Oldham pushed Everton all the way before bowing out in a replay and he moved to Leeds United in the summer.
Jordi Gomez, who scored the penalty that settled the match with Macclesfield Town, was part of the Wigan Athletic squad that shocked everyone to win the FA Cup in May against Manchester City. Gomez is still at Wigan now and is playing this season in the UEFA Europa League as a result of Wigan’s cup exploits.
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