Go Havant! and Waterlooville!

It's a few years since i discovered the wonder that is the FA Cup. (Yeah, they've only been playing it for something like 120 years. I'm a little late to the party.) It's a fascinating competition, unlike anything in the US sports world. Imagine the NCAA basketball tournament. Multiplied a thousandfold.

I wrote about it a while back, when the Brewers of Burton Albion held the mighty Red Devils of Manchester United to a draw in their third round match, and earned a replay at Old Trafford. The money earned from that game has obviously been put to good use, as Burton's part-timers are in the thick of the battle for promotion to League 2.

This year's Cinderella story belongs to non-league Havant and Waterlooville, a mid table team in the Conference South. That's a couple of divisions lower than League 2, by the way. H&W just knocked off Swansea City, who are the current League 1 leaders, and advanced to the fourth round. I think they're the first non-league team to make it that far in a decade or so. Their reward is a match against mighty Liverpool, at Anfield, where instead of the 50 or so family members they're used to playing in front of, there'll be 50,000 some fans screaming "You'll Never Walk Alone" at the top of their lungs.

Seriously, this is like your American Legion baseball team getting into a tournament with the Boston Red Sox. And playing at Fenway.

The game is scheduled for Saturday, the 26th. FSC is showing League 2 bottom dwellers Mansfield v Premiership mediocrities Middlesborough. Oh, well.

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Now that's what I call civilized

Tomorrow's the big game, the FA Cup final between Chelsea and Man U. It's the English Super Bowl, if you don't follow soccer, the culmination of a season long tournament that runs parallel to league play, that every club, from local amateur sides to the highest level international players, is able to participate in. (Fox Soccer Channel won't be showing the game until Tuesday night, so please don't tell me the score, OK?)

Over in the British Isles, where gambling is legal, you can get a line on virtually every possible circumstance surrounding the game. My favorite?

Paddy Power (an Irish bookmaker) has opened a book on the BBC's first commentary cliche during the match, with "worth the wait" the favourite at 6-1.

On a more serious note, i like what the Brits are doing to encourage the 90,000 + fans attending the game to use public transportation.

A spokesman for Wembley said fans attending Saturday's match were being encouraged not to bring their cars. He said there were good public transport links nearby and nowhere to park during the game.

Try that in Southern California.

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They gave it a go

Quality shows, and in the end, the part-timers at Burton Albion proved no match for the big boys at Manchester United, going down 5-0 in their FA Cup 3rd round replay. There'll be no shame when the Brewers return to their day jobs and go out for a pint after work tonight.

Man U coach Alex Ferguson, quoted in the Guardian, wasn't merely being generous with his praise:

All the credit should go to Nigel Clough and Burton," said Ferguson. "Nigel has done a fantastic job and he should be proud of them. We've had top European teams and Premiership clubs come here and put one up front, pack the midfield and bore the pants off everyone. Sometimes they get a result, sometimes they don't, but at least Burton came here with two up front. They played with belief and confidence and they showed that teams in the Conference are capable of playing good football."

This was a match for all of us who play in softball beer leagues, who throw the frisbee with other 40 somethings, who put on the pads at 1 am to skate in hockey rinks all over the world.

Good job, men.

Continue reading They gave it a go

FA Cup

I love this story in the Guardian about tonight's FA Cup replay between Nuneaton Borough of Conference North. and Middlesbrough of the Premiership, about 120 places above them.

It is a pre-match routine which might not appeal to Mark Viduka or Gaizka Mendieta, but spending the day producing shower cubicles and the evening working as a chiropodist seems to Nuneaton Borough's Michael Love a perfectly normal way to prepare for tonight's FA Cup third-round replay at Middlesbrough.

Love's 13-hour shift highlights the disparity between Nuneaton's part-timers and their Premiership opponents, though the chasm was not evident 10 days ago when the Conference North club secured a draw through Gez Murphy's late penalty.

. . .

It is a match which Love, in particular, intends to savour. Eight years ago he was in the Stevenage team that drew 1-1 with Newcastle to earn a replay at St James' Park, though a metatarsal injury in the first meeting meant that he travelled to the north-east only as a spectator. "I went to clear the ball and as Keith Gillespie took it off me I kicked the bottom of his foot," the left-back recalls. "Gillespie went on and crossed and [Alan] Shearer scored. I carried on but when [Giuliano] Grazioli equalised just before half-time I jumped on him and felt the bone snap.

"That put a dampener on it really and that's why the games against Middlesbrough mean a lot more to me. I thought I'd had my bite of the cherry; you think it's once in a lifetime that you'll play against the likes of Shearer, so for it to happen again is unbelievable."

. . .

Fame of sorts has followed, with Love's face the new screensaver of choice at the factory where he spends four days a week assembling shower units. Not that he has had time to dwell on his Match of the Day appearance; while Middlesbrough's players were putting their feet up yesterday evening he was telling his clients to do the same as he began his part-time job as a chiropodist. "It's hard work at times finishing at the factory and then going out to work again," he says. "I'll often start at eight in the morning and finish at nine at night. But I do enjoy it. It's just a case of making that transition where I can get enough clients and do it full-time."

Best of luck tonight, Mike. Enjoy the match.

Update: 'Boro-5 Nuneaton-2. Let's hear it for the amateurs.

Dressing-room tensions and disappointing results have turned Steve McClaren into an insomniac but Middlesbrough's manager should have slept soundly last night.

While McClaren was left to temporarily forget his Premiership woes and dream about a fourth-round tie with Coventry, Roger Ashby, Nuneaton's manager, returned to the Midlands well beaten but still able to feel immensely proud of his team of plumbers, builders, teachers and driving instructors.

Guardian football.

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The FA Cup

Can you name an English soccer team?

OK, besides Manchester United?

Two years ago, i couldn't either. So i had no appreciation for the nature of what transpired this past weekend during the 3rd round of England's FA Cup.

Here's the background. The FA Cup has been contested annually since 1880. It is open to all English football clubs, at every competitive level, and the winner gains entry into the following year's prestigious Champions League competition featuring the best sides in Europe. This year, something like 750 teams entered.

The nearest thing like it on the American sports scene is the NCAA basketball tournament held over 3 consecutive weekends in March and April. In that tournament, the champion of the Atlantic Sun or Horizon conference can find themselves drawn against a team from one of the powerhouse conferences like the Atlantic Coast or the Big East. So the FA Cup is like that, only more so.

See, in England, everybody plays football. So pretty much everybody's on a team. And all these teams get to enter the Cup.

Now, there aren't any brackets or seeding committees to deal with, either. What happens is that the teams playing in the top flight of competitions get byes through to later stages of the tournament. There are four nationwide competitive leagues in England, the Premiership, the Championship, League One, and League Two, from top to bottom. The Premiership is where you find teams like Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, and, of course, Manchester United. Rosters on these clubs are chock full of players who are starters for their countries in international competition. Below these are the regional conferences and various local affiliations. During the course of regular league competition, teams that finish in the top two or three in their league can be promoted up to the next level of competition, while teams that finish in the bottom places can be relegated down a division. Entry point into the competition is based on a team's place during that year.

So, there are 6 rounds of qualifying play before the actual tournament proper begins. At that point, the 48 teams from League 1 and League 2 enter the competition against the remaining 32 teams from the various conferences. Don't forget, most of the conference teams are made up of weekend players who have full time jobs, kids, rent, all of the other distractions that make up a life for someone who isn't a top level professional athlete.

The first two rounds of the competition proper reduce the surviving teams down to 20, at which point the 44 teams from the Championship and Premiership are drawn into the tournament.

So, let's take a brief look at Nuneaton Borough AFC, who play in the Conference North, and are still alive in the competition. Nuneaton entered the tournament in the 2nd qualifying round, and won their home match with AFC Telford on September 25, in front of 1174 fans. Their 3rd round qualifier against Chelmsford City FC (who sit mid-table in the Ryman League Premier Division) ended in a 1-1 draw at home, with just under a thousand in attendance. Nuneaton won the replay 4 days later on October 12 2-1 at Chelmsford, with 379 fans attending. That won them a fixture against Tiverton Town FC, who are a mid-level team playing in the Southern Premier League. Once again, the first home match ended in a draw, and the replay, at Tiverton, saw Nuneaton advance 1-0, in front of a crowd of 885. In the first round proper, Nuneaton picked up a match against Ramsgate FC, who play in the Ryman First Division, and had themselves won matches in the Preliminary, First, Second Third and Fourth qualifying rounds. Nuneaton won that match, 2-0 on November 4, as attendance climbed to 2100+. This earned them a fixture with Histon, an upper table club who play in the Conference South, with a shot at promotion at the end of the year. The first leg played at Nuneaton ended in a 2-2 draw on December 3. Nuneaton took the replay 2-1 at Histon, with almost 3100 attending.

This past Saturday, Nuneaton got their reward, as Premiership club Middlesbrough, currently 16th in the top flight but still alive in UEFA Cup competition in Europe, visited for the 3rd round draw. 6000 fans turned out for this game as Nuneaton, who sit around 100 places below Boro, earned a 1-1 draw, and a replay at Middlesbrough for the right to take on Championship side Coventry in the fourth round.

As The Guardian describes it:

Mark Viduka and Yakubu Aiyegbeni led the attack against a Nuneaton central defence of the 39-year-old semi-retired Terry Angus and the 32-year-old club captain Neil Moore. The two forwards may yet be spared a repeat performance if Angus cannot take next Tuesday off work.

"You might look at it overall and say a draw is fair enough," said Angus. "If I get there, work permitting, we'll give it a go in the replay. We've got a game plan and we'll go for it."

So, hopefully that gives a bit of perspective on the accomplishments of some of these teams this past weekend. Nuneaton holding Middlesbrough to a draw is kind of like your church league over-30 roundball team taking Duke to double-overtime. League 2 Leyton Orient took out Premier side Fulham FC 2-1, which is kind of like the Stetson Hatters beating Carolina.

But for the biggest, most inspiring match of the weekend, look to the Brewers of Burton Albion FC, home of great pale ale and the worlds worst logo. Remember at the top of the piece i asked you to name an English soccer team? Well, Conference North Burton, who played a local Cup competition earlier in the season before 119 family members, drew Manchester United as their 3rd round opponent in a home fixture. Nearly 6200 fans packed the Pirelli Stadium, as Burton held the Red Devils to a 0-0 draw, and earned a replay on the 18th at Old Trafford. That's like your church league team taking the San Antonio Spurs into overtime.

And that's an inspiration for every one of us who strives to compete, at any level, in any endeavor. The Burton-Man. U game is being rebroadcast tonight (Monday 9 January) at 8 eastern time on Fox Soccer Channel. I'll be watching.

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