LAUGHING CAVALIERS
(Punchline is that Newport chairman missed goal because he was having a wee!)
HOW they laughed. They laughed at Claude Puel, they laughed at his players, they laughed at what they represent. ‘ Premier League?’ they asked in song and then they laughed some more, those fans of Newport in their cackling madness.
How marvellous it is when an upset comes together — but this was a little more than that.
It was about more than the messing up of food chains and the redemption of a fan-owned club, with its wonderful story of exploding tumble driers, bankruptcy and rejects-made-good.
That was all nice and brilliant, of course, because the context is what makes these tales. But it was also about the content, the sheer bonkers nature of a thrill-fest that twisted and contorted until it stopped at the most ludicrous of outcomes.
To appreciate it, you have to go back to the start, to when Leicester pummelled their League Two opposition on to their own goalline for the better part of the first 10 minutes.
They were eating them alive, as they should have been with 74 places between seventh in the Premier League and 13th in League Two. And then came the sucker punch, with Jamille Matt scoring for Newport and the punchline that the Newport chairman Gavin Foxall missed it because he was having a wee.
The kicker was that Leicester forced their way back, levelling on 82 minutes through Rachid Ghezzal. The clock hurt on that one — it was the same stage in the game that Harry Kane had equalised for Tottenham in the fourth round here last year.
But romance, what lovely romance. A home penalty. Five minutes to go. Up stepped Paddy Amond and bang.
Cue bedlam and cue his belated place among the old cup’s legends, because it was the same Irishman who had been denied a place in folklore against Spurs in 2018 when his would-be winner was cancelled out by Kane.
He spoke to Sportsmail about his near miss with fame that night while holding a toilet door open for drunk fans — there’s FA Cup beauty in that, if you look hard enough. There is now, anyway.
This was the night when he finally
got there, this journeyman of nine clubs from Sligo Rovers to Pacos de Ferreira, via Morecambe, Grimsby, Hartlepool and an accusation from the manager of the latter that he had once refused to play.
‘If you dream the impossible it can happen,’ he said. Today he will coach the club’s Under 16s because it is that kind of operation, where money doesn’t go too far.
That was illustrated last year when their £400,000 cup-run bounty was designated for a new washing room because the tumble drier had burnt the old one down. It has still not been built, but the £285,000 racked up this time will help.
‘I might get a new bag of balls,’ joked manager Michael Flynn.
Who knows what awaits Puel, though. He is on shaky terrain, which is odd for a man whose side have beaten Chelsea and Manchester City in recent weeks.
That only goes to show there is importance in the cups because it is his capitulations in those competitions that has made him look bad. In the Carabao Cup, he effectively threw the towel in on their quarter-final with Manchester City by picking a weakened team.
In this instance, he made seven changes to the side he last used in the league, with only Danny Simpson, Jonny Evans, Hamza Choudhury and Ghezzal retained.
Seventh in the Premier League is a fine thing, of course, but trophies are rather nice, too.
What Puel now surely knows is that his attack is blunt without Jamie Vardy. His decision to rest him here looked more questionable with each of the 10 first-half misses.
It looked worse still when Matt put Newport ahead and continued to feature in the mind when Leicester missed countless more chances.
Ghezzal’s equaliser should have killed the silliness. Put an end to the madness. But the FA Cup is still magnificent for its unpredictability if nothing else, so Marc Albrighton’s handball gave all neutrals the finale they wanted and gave Amond his moment. And so the folk of Newport laughed. Brilliant stuff.