FA Cup - Round Two

Lee Dong Gook got a mention too

A few weeks back I wrote about the FA Cup and the drama that I've witnessed from it over the years. Then as fortune would have it my beloved Boro produced of of the best performances I've ever seen from them.

We beat the champions of England and one of the richest clubs in the World on their home turf. The
nature of the performance was something else, it really was. Luckily for me the game was on Korean
TV so I watched in glorious full HD rather than a flaky web stream.

Perhaps the biggest shock in FA Cup history is one that I failed to mention. It was of course the 1988 Final in which Wimbledon beat Liverpool.

To set the scene you'd have to recall that back in the 1980s Liverpool were all powerful and dominant. They won everything, every season or so it seemed to me. Looking back now it's fair to say that the Liverpool side of the mid 1980s were the best I've ever seen. They didn't just beat teams, they played them off the park and left them grasping at thin air.

To me it was nothing short of pain and misery to see this Liverpool side of Rush, Barnes and McMahon as all conquering heroes. Suffice to say, heroes they were to almost all schoolboys, even in deepest, darkest Middlesbrough. I say almost all because I bloody hated em. In spite of the fact that my mothers father was a scouser and a staunch kopite who tried to convert me, I stayed loyal to my old dad and followed the Boro.

Yes, I could have avoided all those years of pain and misery by just taking up the baton from my granddad and supporting Liverpool. I could have shared European Cup wins, FA Cup wins, UEFA Cup glory but I chose the Boro and have had one League Cup win in 39 years to bask in. Do I regret it? Not for a second.

So back to that day in 1988 when everybody expected Liverpool to complete another double having already been crowned champions. Back then I was still a bit naive in a footballing sense and wouldn't know a hospital ball from the long ball game that Wimbledon were so infamous for. I just wanted to see Liverpool lose and if it was an unfashionable side then all the better.

In the days leading up the game I was royally mocked at school for saying that I thought Wimbledon could do it. On the morning of the game I became more & more convinced that they would do it. If 13 year olds had money to burn and were allowed to gamble, then I'm certain that I would have had a wager on the Dons.

They did do it and I nearly sliced my knee off with a shovel but that's another story.

Next Monday at school there was total silence from the mockers of the previous week.The next season the glory supporters would soon switch to Boro as we made our way to the top flight and made a name for ourselves.

Anyway, my above ramblings have all lead me to recommend this excellent documentary on Wimbledon and the Crazy Gang...