It's the phrase that has become almost a cliche for football fans around this time of year. I speak of the English FA Cup which entered it's 3rd round proper stage at the weekend and was bizarrely continuing into Wednesday morning (Korean Time).
The third round stretching into five days is actually nothing compared to what it used to be in the days of 2nd and 3rd replays. There were no penalty shootouts back then to settle a tie, so ties between two clubs could go on for weeks.
The Cup was certainly magic back then to a young boy growing up in Middlesbrough. I knew that my team didn't have a cat in hells chance of winning the bloody thing. I still however looked forward to the draw in December and then the first weekend in January when the games came about.
There have been some great cup shocks over the years but the early 80s seemed to produce them every season. One that sticks out in my mind is when Bournemouth beat cup holders Man Utd in 1984 . This 'giant killing' has been well documented since then but what hasn't is that in the next round Boro beat Bournemouth 2-0 at Ayresome Park.
My primary school was next door to our old ground. On the day of the game, during a school PE lesson in the playground we saw the Bournemouth team bus pulling up. I screamed 'there's Bournemouth' to which my PE teacher replied ' no, that's a bus '. Such sarcasm was rife in English schools back them.
The Boro have had their fair share of twists and turns in the cup in the years that I've been following them. I recall Bishop Stortford taking us to a replay at their ground in which we won. That was my first taste of a non league team scaring the the life out of us but more was to follow in the 87/88 season.
In that season we were flying and on course for a second successive promotion after being declared bankrupt and left for dead by the Football League. Phoenix like from the ashes we rose under a man who has achieved sainthood in my eyes...Bruce Rioch.
In the 3rd round that year we were drawn against Sutton United, who I'd never heard of before. In the first game played on a muddy pitch in a stadium that looked like a public park the honours were even.
The following midweek, I was looking forward to Boro giving these non league upstarts a footballing lesson as they visited the home of football. As it transpired they played us of the park for vast periods of the game. The game entered extra time and looked to be heading to another replay until Paul (nookie) Kerr popped up and scored the winner. We were very lucky that night and we knew it. As it happened the Sutton players got a standing ovation from the crowd and had a mini lap of honour such was the respect they earned for taking us the distance.
Jump forward a few years and Sutton United finally got their man/men when they beat the 1987 cup winners Coventry City.
Back to the 87/88 season and a tie that will always stir the passion of any Boro fan who was there that night. After beating Sutton, we had to face the league champions Everton at Goodison Park. I wasn't expecting anything from this game but we played a blinder and held them to a 1-1 draw. Now for the replay at our place and this was a night of high drama and passion.
This was proper football, played at 90 miles an hour under floodlights with a packed house in attendance. To this day I've never heard noise like it from any crowd, in any stadium in the world.
We nearly did it too, we had them on the canvas and the referee was about to count them out but...
Imagine that last five minutes of extra time for one moment. Two years earlier my team had been declared dead and buried, our stadium was locked up and we had to play on somebody else's ground. Now we are minutes, seconds even from beating the league champions. Then Everton scored with the last kick of the game and to make matters worse Peter Reid pointed (scroll to 10:10 on the video and I'm wearing green, leaning on the tunnel wall) and laughed at my glum face as he ran down the tunnel.
Since that night, every time I hear the 'magic of the cup' my mind flashes back to that night.
The third round stretching into five days is actually nothing compared to what it used to be in the days of 2nd and 3rd replays. There were no penalty shootouts back then to settle a tie, so ties between two clubs could go on for weeks.
The Cup was certainly magic back then to a young boy growing up in Middlesbrough. I knew that my team didn't have a cat in hells chance of winning the bloody thing. I still however looked forward to the draw in December and then the first weekend in January when the games came about.
There have been some great cup shocks over the years but the early 80s seemed to produce them every season. One that sticks out in my mind is when Bournemouth beat cup holders Man Utd in 1984 . This 'giant killing' has been well documented since then but what hasn't is that in the next round Boro beat Bournemouth 2-0 at Ayresome Park.
My primary school was next door to our old ground. On the day of the game, during a school PE lesson in the playground we saw the Bournemouth team bus pulling up. I screamed 'there's Bournemouth' to which my PE teacher replied ' no, that's a bus '. Such sarcasm was rife in English schools back them.
The Boro have had their fair share of twists and turns in the cup in the years that I've been following them. I recall Bishop Stortford taking us to a replay at their ground in which we won. That was my first taste of a non league team scaring the the life out of us but more was to follow in the 87/88 season.
In that season we were flying and on course for a second successive promotion after being declared bankrupt and left for dead by the Football League. Phoenix like from the ashes we rose under a man who has achieved sainthood in my eyes...Bruce Rioch.
In the 3rd round that year we were drawn against Sutton United, who I'd never heard of before. In the first game played on a muddy pitch in a stadium that looked like a public park the honours were even.
The following midweek, I was looking forward to Boro giving these non league upstarts a footballing lesson as they visited the home of football. As it transpired they played us of the park for vast periods of the game. The game entered extra time and looked to be heading to another replay until Paul (nookie) Kerr popped up and scored the winner. We were very lucky that night and we knew it. As it happened the Sutton players got a standing ovation from the crowd and had a mini lap of honour such was the respect they earned for taking us the distance.
Jump forward a few years and Sutton United finally got their man/men when they beat the 1987 cup winners Coventry City.
Back to the 87/88 season and a tie that will always stir the passion of any Boro fan who was there that night. After beating Sutton, we had to face the league champions Everton at Goodison Park. I wasn't expecting anything from this game but we played a blinder and held them to a 1-1 draw. Now for the replay at our place and this was a night of high drama and passion.
This was proper football, played at 90 miles an hour under floodlights with a packed house in attendance. To this day I've never heard noise like it from any crowd, in any stadium in the world.
We nearly did it too, we had them on the canvas and the referee was about to count them out but...
Imagine that last five minutes of extra time for one moment. Two years earlier my team had been declared dead and buried, our stadium was locked up and we had to play on somebody else's ground. Now we are minutes, seconds even from beating the league champions. Then Everton scored with the last kick of the game and to make matters worse Peter Reid pointed (scroll to 10:10 on the video and I'm wearing green, leaning on the tunnel wall) and laughed at my glum face as he ran down the tunnel.
Since that night, every time I hear the 'magic of the cup' my mind flashes back to that night.
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