The FA Cup Final – Live

Well, I’ve managed to work myself up into a frenzy over this year’s FA Cup final, and we’re doing it live. Live commentary from the comfort of my living room will start at about 2.45 with a raucous rendition of “Abide With Me” – they still do that, right? The teams will line up as [...]

The FA Cup Final 2008

In an age in which football has become almost wearily predictable in many respects, this year’s FA Cup has been a breath of fresh air. Whether we’re talking about Havant & Waterlooville’s demolition of Swansea City and their subsequent day out at Anfield, Barnsley’s extraordinary performances against Liverpool and Chelsea and Portsmouth’s tin at Old [...]

Bluebirds Into Europe?

It was always likely to cause something of a shit storm, and now it’s likely to get completely out of hand. All of this is happening, as well, whilst the likelihood of it even mattering is still arguably less than fifty per cent. The fact of the matter is that Cardiff City will start the [...]

The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Striker

Will there be a more poignant image taken this season than this one of Barnsley’s Kayode Odejayi? With twenty minutes played in the second half of this afternoon’s FA Cup semi-final between Barnsley and Cardiff City, he was put through on goal with a glorious chance to level things up. One can only imagine what [...]

It Was Forty Years Ago Today

Well, it wasn’t exactly forty years ago today, but it was forty years ago West Bromwich Albion, the last of our four FA Cup survivors, last won the Cup. They stand alone amongst the four clubs left in this year’s competition as being the only club to have won the competition more than once, but [...]

Pompey Play Up

There are a couple of clubs for whom 2007/08 could turn out to to be the perfect season. For supporters of, say, Hull City, promotion to the Premier League coupled with a failure on the part of Leeds United to get back into League One could be regarded as everything that their supporters have ever [...]

The 1912 Overture

There are a couple of parallels between the FA Cup exploits of Cardiff City and Bansley. Both have won the FA Cup just the once, having lost the final two years previously. For Barnsley supporters, though the wait has been an even longer one – their one and only FA Cup win came in [...]

When Cardiff Won The Cup

Over the next couple of days, we’ll be looking at the previous FA Cup exploits of this year’s four semi-finalists, starting with Cardiff City, who take on Barnsley at Wembley on Sunday afternoon. It’s a myth that requires some deconstruction – over the last few days, certain quarters of the Welsh press have been building [...]

Tales Of The Unexpected

You could tell that, by yesterday lunchtime, large parts of the media had run out of things to say about this year’s FA Cup. With Manchester United and Chelsea having been eliminated, the autocues ran dry and the tippity-lapping of the hacks hunched over their laptops slowed to a halt. Barnsley, Cardiff City, West Bromwich [...]

Tired & Emotional

Savour this evening, and tomorrow. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that you should savour the rest of this season’s FA Cup competition, because Big Money won’t allow an oversight like this to happen again. We’re half-way through the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, and Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool aren’t [...]