Quick story: in 1958 my family moved to lively Nottingham from sleepy Kent (where they didn’t do football – still don’t). My NZ rugby-schooled father steeled himself and took me to the City Ground to see Nottingham Forest, who were then playing (averagely) in the old First Division. Dad came away disgusted by the language (on and off the field), the violence, unsportsmanlike behaviour, ‘kissing and cuddling’ and play-acting, – and he never went again. Me? Loved it, hooked forever and I never missed a home game in the swinging Sixties. That first year, 1959, in the Third Round of the FA Cup Forest drew non-league Tooting and Mitcham (who?) away. On an awful bone-hard, snow-cleared pitch with Sarf London locals baying for big Red blood, Forest were 2 – 0 down with 20 minutes left. Tooting’s left back Eddie Murphy – who had scored their second goal – then obligingly stepped in with an own goal, gave away a penalty, and it finished 2 – 2. Check it out on YouTube Pathe News…. Forest won the replay at the City Ground 3 – 0 and an unbelievable Cup run followed, ending up with my heroes winning the FA Cup at Wembley by beating Luton Town, the Liverpool of the day 2 – 1. **Anorak alert/good quiz question: in the final Elton John’s cousin, Roy Dwight on Forest’s right wing scored the first goal, then broke his leg after 30 minutes and the redoubtable, resilient Reds held out for an hour with ten men, no substitutes then**. Giant killers? Underdogs? Fantasies? Romance? Thrills, spills, good luck, bad luck – and winning the Cup heroically. Magic? Oh yes, it was all there in 1959…
2017? Well yes, in the quarter finals we’ve still got Lincoln, Millwall – and Huddersfield, just about, to dream with from the lower reaches. But the usual vastly-overpaid suspects, more or less unsurprisingly are still there – like something you stepped in that you just can’t quite shake off. If a non-Prem outfit gets to Wembley it’ll be a miracle; the best we can hope for is that the FA Cup is won by a ‘Middlingborough’ club, one that needs to – and there’s one left that fits the bill who sweatily bucked their non-scoring/tightass league form by beating modest Oxford 3 – 2. Oh, but it looks like Man City next – probably forget that then…
Tottenham will surely topple Millwall (psst. the White Hart Lane stadium is to be demolished… maybe the Millwall fans could help…), and Arsenal will beat Lincoln (yawn)… Hope it’s then an all Norf London semi, mate. The best of a bad Sixth Round draw has to be Blue v Red, London v Manchester, Conte v Mourinho, aka Chelsea v Man U – complete with hopefully-from-me Jose getting his just desserts from his old lads, today including his mishandled, rejected, unloved Moses with the unforgiving (and short-memoried) Chelsea fans relishing every second – how harsh football can be…
So please – the FA Cup doesn’t need to be won – again – by Manewe, Chelski, Citeh, Spares – and definitely not the Gunnarse again to artificially extend the Arsenic saga even more. Winning this Cup by none of these would really be magic for any of the others, as with my Forest 57 years ago, and hopefully in the process give real, homespun supporters (you know who you are) a day out they’ll never forget – one to tell their grandkids about (I do…). A day that football won, their team having beaten some bigheads and financially betters along the way. Will that happen this year any more in this FA Cup? I very much doubt it. But hey, in t’meanwhile – c’mon the Saints in the Awful/Efluent Cup Final on 26th Feb. I loved it when the same two clubs met in 1976 in the Bobby Stokes FA Cup Final. Lordy, the Saints were Magic that day! Dream on, John…