The FA Cup third round nourishes and sustains the soul — it’s the greatest day in football calendar
IT USED to be the FA Cup final build-up that started in the Saturday morning sunshine but here, at 11.30am on third round day, was a Gillingham fan with extravagant hair on Football Focus, explaining about his town’s ice rink, its famous son David Frost and why its stadium is called ‘Home of the Running Man’.
With all due respect to Newcastle United’s Sean Longstaff, over on ITV, providing one of those polished pre-match interviews we hear ad nauseam every week, this was the better ticket. You gave silent thanks for the Priestfield Stadium and its tight little brick back corridor which might give Sheffield United cause to shudder.
And then, before a ball had even been kicked in anger among the many FA Cup opponents, the interview of the day materialised. George Elokobi, the Cameroonian who took over as Maidstone United manager last year after 20 years as a journeyman player, fought back tears as he told Focus’ brilliant Mark Clemmit about his wish to help the National League South team in a way which would have made his father, long since lost, proud. How beautiful that was.
‘Thank you for this interview,’ said Clemmit, embracing Elokobi, a giant of a defender who helped Wolves reach the Premier League 15 years ago, and in that moment you just wished it could be like this — genuine, uncalculated and heartfelt — every week.
Perhaps that is unrealistic. It is the scarcity value which gives this weekend its precious quality. Either way, Sunderland versus Newcastle somehow seemed less important then, despite the monumental and deafening atmosphere on Wearside which rendered Roy Keane’s attempts to speak almost hopeless. The fate of Elokobi’s players against Stevenage, 69 places above them in the pyramid, felt more significant.
Bewilderingly, neither Maidstone nor Gillingham’s games were televised, despite that entire prematch programme being broadcast from pitch, dugout, dressing-room and bar at the latter.
The wireless was the only answer. Yet Radio Kent — the only place to go for commentary of the tie according to Maidstone United, whose social media feed bemoaned ‘archaic rules with the rights holders’ — were steadfastly sticking to their usual lunchtime schedule, including Duran Duran and an interview about local panto. A tweet to the local radio station, inquiring where a commentary of Elokobi’s men might be found, elicited no reply.
It was 2pm, well into the second half at Maidstone, before football hit the local station, by which time the two commentators at the Gallagher Stadium were describing fans shinning up trees, as the Kent residents sensed their team may be closing in on something special. ‘That guy’s got to be careful up there,’ said the first of the commentators. ‘He’s very high up on the trees,’ replied the second. ‘Careful son,’ returned the first.
It was a play within a play, all part of a drama for which words alone more than sufficed. ‘We’re almost in the 90s,’ said commentator one, whose application of cricketing vocabulary to the closing minutes was unintended. ‘Days like this don’t come around often,’ contended the other. ‘Dare to dream.’
The men in trees probably came to no harm. If they had, we would have surely heard of it. Or seen it on the BBC’s Final Score show, which by early afternoon was a window into the colour and drama of third-round day, taking us into out-of-theway places.
The programme screened clips of the questionable Maidstone penalty, a Maidstone fan dressed as a banana, the Maidstone advertising hoardings for Fred’s Wine Cellar and John Bennett Billiards and Maidstone players wearing jerseys without their names on the back. It was a wonderful novelty.
The long hours before Newcastle signed off on Wearside and Middlesbrough kicked off against Aston Villa begged a question about why BBC Interactive, which brought us Chelsea’s win over Preston last night, could not have added more games.
But Final Score, the fulcrum of the coverage, delivered well, juggling goals and ties in football’s equivalent of Election Night. Jason Mohammad, Stephen Warnock and Rachel Brown-Finnis are a consummate and excellent team.
Gillingham were quickly sinking like a stone, with Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder walking around the Priestfield in an extravagant grey bobble hat like he owned the place.
QPR could not sustain their early lead against Bournemouth. BBC reporter Naz Premji’s infectious first-half enthusiasm about Cambridge United could not be maintained as they fell 5-2 behind.
But National League Chesterfield were engaged in a serious fight at Watford and the scenes Radio Sheffield’s Phil Tooley described from the ground’s stone-cold commentary box were a journey back into the day’s essence. They call that sports show ‘Football Heaven’ and it was living up to its name.
The significance of an unmarked Chesterfield player, Ryan Colclough, sending a free header over the bar as the game approached its close was all too clear, because several commentators told us about it. It’s not the biggest commentary box in the world at Watford and you could still hear a rival station’s commentator explaining the miss as Tooley paused for breath.
Watford then struck back. Ryan Boot, in Chesterfield’s goal, launched himself into a string of saves. The strains of ‘I am Sailing’ — a Chesterfield anthem — struck up in the Hertfordshire night.
At 1-1, you were starting to imagine Watford travelling to Chesterfield’s tight, inhospitable little ground on the edge of the Pennines, where it rains a lot. And then, 90 seconds from time, Watford’s winner went in.
‘It’s desperate, desperate for Chesterfield. They’re on their haunches, in stoppage time in this FA Cup tie,’ Tooley related.
But no sooner had the whistle been blown, leading him to relate the fundamental reason why this kind of heartbreak is so common — fractionally greater athleticism, fractionally greater class — than the programme was swinging away to Sheffield Wednesday v Cardiff City, one of the evening games.
No time to reflect on Chesterfield’s elimination at the thirdround stage for four years running. No time to discuss the monumental shift Paul Cook’s players had put in throughout this afternoon. The vanquished quickly become debris — marginalia — on the football calendar’s greatest day.
AFTER all that, it was hard to summon much enthusiasm for the familiar surrounds of Chelsea, a return to the quotidian televised football world, even though Preston provided unfamiliar opposition. Teesside’s febrile reception for Aston Villa promised one last offer of heroics, though the Riverside was hardly a journey into the game’s outer reaches.
It was the sight of Elokobi, reflecting on his Maidstone players’ achievement, which will always define third round Saturday, 2024.
The win, he reflected, ‘has brought us together forever. It’s history. A historic moment for our players, their families, my backroom staff, my community back in Cameroon, my family, my kids who were here today.
‘Just to see the next generation, the younger generation, everyone coming together to celebrate a momentous win like this is what this cup is about. The magic of the FA Cup is very much alive.’
Elokobi was the day’s beacon, reminding us that far from the sound, fury, entitlement and temporary controversies of football’s fabuloulsy wealthy higher reaches, there is a soul which the FA Cup third round nourishes and sustains.