Atomic Sports Media: The FA Cupset

This is due to be posted on Atomic Sports Media but I thought I would post it here while it's still fresh (and before the semi-finals), so here I give you an account of the amazing FA Cup we've had in England (and Wales) this year.


What is a Cupset, you may ask? Well, it happens to be the most overused word in sport over here in Britain, as we face possibly the strangest outcome to the FA Cup in modern times.

A portmanteau of “cup” and “upset”, the description couldn’t be any closer to the reality. With the semi-finals announced, only one of the four teams remaining is in the Premiership - and it’s none of the Big Four (Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea or Liverpool), but Portsmouth. The other 3 teams may be little-known to your average non-Brit, with West Bromwich Albion, Barnsley and Cardiff City representing the second-tier of the Football League, the Championship.

What happened?

Well, we must address what is commonly known as “the magic of the FA Cup”. Hundreds of football clubs, big and small, enter to try and make the best of what they have - as long as they have a suitable ground, of course. This year a record breaking 731 teams entered, which automatically includes all 92 Football League teams (from the Premier League, the Championship and Leagues One and Two).

Most of these will be eliminated by the First Round Proper in preliminary rounds. After this, League One and Two teams are entered (including my team, Hartlepool United). By round three the Premiership and Championship teams begin, which is when the fun begins…

Just to make it clear, each team gets 40% of ticket sales, with 20% going to the FA. This means that if a small team gets an away game at a huge club with thousands of fans, they’ll be swimming in money.

The early rounds showcase little-known teams who make it through the qualifying rounds. Although many other small outfits had great runs, this year it was two teams in particular - Chasetown and Havant & Waterlooville - that stunned even the most passive of football fans.

Chasetown after beating Port Vale in the second round

Both having quite easy opening fixtures against similar small teams, Chasetown made it all the way to the Third Round Proper, going out to a Cardiff City side that could only manage 3 goals against them, even if the Welsh team made up for it by staying in the competition until now.

Havant & Waterlooville, however, had a fairytale ascent to fame. Having beaten the League One leaders Swansea City 4-2 in the Third Round Proper, their next tie was to come away at Liverpool, who were Champions League finalists last year and winners in 2005. Liverpool’s home ground of Anfield, with a 45,000 capacity, was far from H&W’s West Leigh Park, that barely held a tenth of that.

The game was a foregone conclusion really - it was just a matter of how many goals Liverpool would score. Funny isn’t it then, that in front of millions watching on BBC TV, Havant went 1-0 up.

But Liverpool pulled one back.

Then Havant scored a second.

Havant & Waterlooville clash with Liverpool in front of 45,000 at Anfield

Regardless of the 5-2 final score to Liverpool, it certainly brings about a collective emotion of those watching the match, particularly when you consider that the H&W players were part-timers, holding down ‘real’ jobs such as window cleaning, bricklaying and garbage collection. Liverpool players are getting paid anything from £20,000 to £80,000 - one of their lowest-paid footballers could cover the entire Havant & Waterlooville budget per week. Twice.

And, of course, the lower league minnows got 40% of the gate receipts, giving them a tidy sum to probably push them up another couple of leagues.

This fairytale ending also took the limelight away from other results that would ultimately shape the upcoming final four. Premiership teams were dropping left, right and centre. Many were drawn against each other - Aston Villa, Tottenham Hotspur and ‘Big Four’ club Arsenal all fell to Manchester United, Everton fell to League One side Oldham Athletic, and other teams such as West Ham United and Manchester City just… disappeared into obscurity.

Bristol Rovers' Danny Coles scoring his team's second against Premiership team Fulham

Another shock came from newly-promoted League One team Bristol Rovers as they went on a rampage, making it all the way to the Sixth Round Proper (or Quarter-Finals) with the scalps of Fulham, Barnet and Southampton.

But the later stages were all about Barnsley FC, a medium-sized club from South Yorkshire who narrowly avoided relegation to League One last season. They became legends of English football - so much so that many want them to win the FA Cup out of sheer worthiness, doing something most (if not all) Premiership clubs fail to do - beating both Liverpool and Chelsea in back-to-back rounds.

It was not so long ago that my team, Hartlepool United, were playing Barnsley in our league. They’re alright, I suppose. Nothing special. But the magic of the FA Cup being what it is, well…

Anyway, the Liverpool game was just hilarious. It was 1-1 with about two minutes left on the clock. The Kop - made up of Liverpool’s finest fans - was already spitting blood at the fact that their team couldn’t even get a narrow win. Then Brian Howard, the Barnsley captain, recovered from a cast-iron penalty that was never given to power the ball home into the bottom corner. 2-1. Pubs were cheering all over the country.

Captain Brian Howard celebrates his Barnsley team's 2-1 victory over Liverpool at Anfield

Apart from Liverpool, of course. Most of them were on fire.

Barnsley had the (bad) luck of the draw afterwards, lining up Chelsea, one of only two ‘Big Four’ clubs left (alongside Manchester United). And as said before, Barnsley deserved it - a strong header from Odejayi in the second half nailed down a 1-0 win in front of thousands of home fans at a packed Oakwell.

Do any of you know of a band called UB40? They were pretty awful. But their famous reggae ‘classic’, Red Red Wine, was applied to Alex Ferguson, Manchester United’s manager, after a 1-0 home loss to Portsmouth which had every other football fan in the country laughing - hard - at a prime piece of divine justice.

Referees were scared at Manchester United’s home ground, Old Trafford. No penalty decisions ever went against the Reds, nor did any key decisions for that matter. Two of these never-before-seen moments happened - United were denied an obvious penalty, and then Portsmouth were given one - with United’s only keeper, Tomasz Kuszczak, sent off for the foul in the process.

Muntari scoring Portsmouth's winning goal past Manchester United temporary goalkeeper Rio Ferdinand

To Portsmouth’s credit, they defended admirably - but Sir Alex did not see it that way, which is where his Red Red Whine speech started. He blamed it on referee Martin Atkinson’s ineptitude, stating that he ought to be refereed himself (implying that referees‘ chief Keith Hackett also couldn‘t, well, hack it). Well done to Alex, who is now being hauled up in front of the FA for his comments. Finally.

So now we have Portsmouth, Barnsley, Cardiff City and West Bromwich Albion. The latter two did nothing too amazing to get there, but are still deserving of semi-finalist status.

The winner gets the trophy, plenty of money and an automatic entry into the UEFA Cup to challenge other European teams - unless you’re Cardiff of course. Given their Welsh status, the FA are having to change their rulings to allow Cardiff the chance to compete as an English team should they win through.

The odds favour Portsmouth for many reasons, not least that they’re the only Premiership team left. But remember the magic, and the Cupsets. It could be absolutely any one of them.

One thing’s for sure: it’s been the most exciting FA Cup for decades, and there won’t be another one like it for a long, long time…