Getting my kicks from the minnows
Edited by Dave Devereux. email: devereuxdave@yahoo.ie
I DON’T know how you spent last Friday evening, but I’m pretty sure not too many of you were watching Eastleigh hoping to produce a giant-killing act by toppling the mighty Swindon Town in the first round of the FA Cup.
It just doesn’t sound right to refer to my club of choice, Swindon, as the giants in the David versus Goliath scenario.
Normally the Robins winning a game is a shock to me, so going into a match as firm favourites is as rare as a Jozy Altidore goal.
Speaking of rarities, it was a treat of sorts for me to be able to watch my beloved Robins on the box.
They might be featured once in a blue moon on Sky Sports, but for the action to be beamed into my sitting room by the kind souls at the BBC is something that will probably happen less than a handful of occasions in my lifetime.
Followers of big clubs across the water don’t know how good they have it.
You get to watch your franchise of choice preening, posing and diving live and in glorious high definition pretty much every weekend and if that’s not enough for you, it can be perused all over again in a comprehensive highlights package on Match of the Day.
Those of us who have been inexplicably saddled with Football League clubs have to make do with a few seconds on the depths on Channel 5 of a Saturday evening.
Having said that, the way Swindon Town have been going of late, maybe I’m better off being kept in the dark, rather than watching them stumble to another defeat.
Sitting fourth from bottom in League One, confidence is about as high as a Boa’s bellybutton at the club, so it’s easy to see why the BBC chose their first round tie away to Eastleigh as a potential shock.
Add to that the fact that they’ve bowed out in the opening round for the past four seasons on the trot and lost three times to nonleague opposition in the past five campaigns, and you have all the ingredients of fairytale result for the minnows.
The magic of the cup may be long gone for Premier League clubs, but the dream does still exist for teams in the lower tiers of English football, whether it be to earn a few quid to keep themselves afloat or to have the glare of the television cameras in some normally ignored backwater.
Clubs where men are men, muck on the shorts is a fashion accessory, and the waft of steaming hot pies penetrates the nostrils in all four corners of the ground.
For Friday night’s game Eastleigh manager Ronnie Moore even had the pitch narrowed to the minimum size to ensure an uncomfortable night for Swindon in an attempt to nullify the league side’s usual passing game.
It does make a pleasant change to watch honest, hard-working players grind their way through a game, instead of the play-acting shites from the upper echelons of football.
Even at the lowest of the low levels of the game you see occasional pieces of brilliance, and Eastleigh goalkeeper Ryan Clarke provided one such moment when he produced a Gordon Banks-esque save to deny Luke Norris, when the ball may or may not have crossed the line.
It was too difficult to tell with the naked eye but fancy-dan things like goal-line technology are light years away from Eastleigh and their ilk.
However, the netminder deserved a bit of luck for his acrobatics, and for his attitude having endured a tough time of late.
Clarke was wearing a t-shirt with ‘RIP Dad, Love Always’ written on it after the match and he explained that he had lost his father after he had undergone heart surgery only a couple of weeks ago.
As he said himself, the big game was a welcome distraction from his grieving and his dad’s passing put things into perspective. It is only sport after all.
In case you’re interested the game ended in a 1-1 draw, so the dream is still there for both sides, and Swindon are in the hat for the second round draw which doesn’t happen too often.
Maybe Swindon Town matches on the telly will be like buses, and the powers-that-be at the BBC will be pencilling in the date of the replay as we speak.
Or perhaps, like Halley’s Comet or an Irish win over the All Blacks, it will be a long time coming.