High five for Tottenham as eighth-tier Marine bow out of cup
Tottenham ensured they were not the victims of the biggest ever FA Cup shock with a 5-0 win at Marine, who even in defeat proved the magic of the competition is still alive.
Never in the competition's 149- year history has there been such a mismatch as the
Premier League side travelled to a club 160 places below them in the football pyramid.
And even though Spurs racked up a comprehensive win it was still a day to remember for the Northern Premier Division North West League outfit.
Jose Mourinho's side won it through Carlos Vinicius' firsthalf hat-trick, a Lucas Moura free-kick and a goal which saw Alfie Devine become the club's youngest ever player and goalscorer at 16 years and 163 days.
But this was all about the eighth-tier side, who enjoyed a dream day and made enough money to safeguard their future for some time, selling over 20,000 virtual match tickets which supplemented a TV fee and prize money for reaching this round of the competition.
This was supposed to be a landslide win for Spurs. But in the 20 th minute Marine came within inches of scoring what would have been one of the most famous goals in FA Cup history. Trainee plumber Neil Kengni found space in the middle of the pitch, drove forward and thundered a 30-yard shot that beat Joe Hart and crashed into the crossbar.
If there was to be a shock that had to go in, but instead four minutes later the dream was dead. Spurs scored the first of four goals in 13 minutes, with Vinicius bagging a hat-trick.
The Brazilian striker's opening two goals came from closerange tap-ins. Moura scored the goal of the game as he whipped in a 20-yard free-kick and then his compatriot completed his treble with a looped finish into the top corner.
Spurs introduced Devine at half-time as he made history and he needed only 15 minutes to enter another page of the record books.
A summer signing from Wigan, Devine found the bottom corner from the edge of the area to cap a memorable day.