Ian Ridley: We should cherish the FA Cup in Non-League
IT’S A TIME OF YEAR TO SAVOUR
COME THE New Year and the third round of the FA Cup, English football will again be debating the worth of the competition, as Premier League and Championship clubs field reserve teams and complain about fixture congestion hindering their attempts to win promotion or avoid relegation. There will be more talk of abandoning replays and going straight to penalties after a draw in the original tie. There will be laments about poor crowds and loss of the magic. And a media reflecting supporters who pine for glory days will seize on any upset as a hopeful sign that the grand old competition is regaining its lustre. Finally, come fifth or sixth round time, topflight managers, if their reserve teams have survived, will come to see the Cup’s value as a way of salvaging a season or saving their jobs. One of the elite will then trouser the £1.8 million winners’ cheque – to them, loose change – which will just about pay the wages of one of their average squad players. Last weekend, before the holders Arsenal had kicked a ball in earnest, 370 teams set off in the extra preliminary round, where Northwich Victoria took on 1874 Northwich, above, and next weekend will see the preliminary round. From Ashington to AFC St Austell, from Penrith to Little Common (near Bexhill, in East Sussex) they kicked off, in search of romance and finance. And gave us all a geography lesson. And sandwiched between come the replays; so rich in intrigue and drama that anyone who suggests killing them off in preliminary and qualifying rounds will only attract the trolling and vitriol of social media. I took in Leverstock Green (an area of Hemel Hempstead, Herts) v Edgware Town at delightfully named Pancake Lane. An eventful night and cracking match it was too. For my £7, I got pitchside parking. You can’t even get a pie and a tea for that at some Premier League clubs. Speaking of tea, for £1.20 it came in a club mug, below left, though I would be a bit concerned were I the club’s manager at the motto on the side. “Dignity in Defeat,” it read. A laudable sentiment but it does seem to be setting a team up to fail…
Stakes
On the night they did, Edgware Town’s resilience somehow seeing them home 3-2 against a talented, pacey, Leverstock side in a feisty and fiercely contested tie. Except… In the sixth added minute, the home side’s left back Casey Linsell fell awkwardly and could not be moved. The referee duly abandoned the match, leaving the two clubs to submit evidence to the FA on why there should or shouldn’t be a replay of the replay. In the end, on Friday afternoon, the FA ruled that the tie should be played again and the two clubs will make a third attempt to find a winner at Pancake Lane on Tuesday. Leverstock seeking a new game was understandable, given that Edgware had equalised deep into added time in the first encounter. And the stakes are huge at this level, with £1,500 at stake; £1,925 for the winners next Saturday. It is lifeblood money for those at Steps 4 and 5. And it matters hugely to the players, too. Just check out footage of Shaftesbury FC (North Dorset) linking arms and belting out ‘Stand By Me’ in the dressing room after their 2-1 replay win at Exmouth. As the National League joins in, then the lower division Football League clubs, through autumn’s mellow fruitfulness, let us savour the FA Cup, its breadth and depth, its joys and agonies, its value to clubs who treasure it – and its value to club treasurers – as well as to the landscape of the English game. Come January, people will be searching for a return of the magic of the Cup. In Non-League, it has never gone away.