Hope For The Underdogs

After 6 back to back 10hour work days over new year my days off have landed at exactly the right time, FA Cup 3rd round weekend.

This is the stage that every amateur side has been working towards for months. Where fans dream of getting the chance to cut one of the big boys down to size…. So obviously my first match of the weekend is an all Premier League affair between Bees and Wolves.

Wolverhampton Wanderers will be travelling south hoping for another big score against hosts that they doled out a simple 4-1 battering to just 9 days ago in the league. Brentford will be out to exact revenge for that defeat and with Fulham kicking off just 15 minutes later, against Championship bottom-feeders Rotherham United, it would be indescribably excellent if we could be winning as they slipped to defeat.

Yesterday and today all the games are being played in London and it’s not till Saturday that the 3rd Round goes truly national.

Much of the talk about the day is focused on the Tyne-Wear derby, especially with the spectacular own goal scored by the Sunderland staff in recent days.

Quite how anyone at the club thought that painting your deadly rivals slogans inside the stadium would be a good idea is beyond me. Did they not understand just how offensive their own fans would find this vandalism?

Whilst an upset for the hosts there would hardly be a shock, with how well Sunderland are doing in the league and Newcastle’s well documented injury crisis still in full swing, it would be a truly seismic shock if any of the non-league quarter made it to the 4th Round.

Chesterfield will be back in the 92 next season, but for now they are the best hope for those hoping for a non-league representative in the next round. Not only are they in scintillating form atop the non-league pyramid, but when they arrive at Hertfordshire’s Vicarage Road they will be taking on a Watford team that haven’t won at home since November 28th.

Aldershot Town will come into their Sunday trip to the Midlands riding high off the back of their brilliant away form in this competition so far this season. Starting off by securing an historic 7-4 victory away at Swindon Town in the first round they followed it up with a brilliant replay victory at Stockport Country.

Both of those victims ply their trade in League 2 and the step up to facing a West Bromwich Albion team may be a step too far for them, especially since the Hawthorns is a fortress where the Baggies have lost just once since the start of September. It looks like this will be a step to far for The Shots, but if the National Leaguers can force a replay then all bets are off.

Eastleigh, the lowest ranked of the National League teams, face a far less daunting challenge as they head across the border to Wales. Facing off against a Newport County team that are just 16 places above them in the pyramid certainly seems like a simple assignment for the Hampshire lot. Particularly so as Newport have won just once in the month since overcoming Barnet, also of the National League, in the last round of the cup.

Maidstone Untied are the last representatives of the 6th-tier left and the lowest ranked team to make it to the 3rd round. Their reward for this success is a home tie against third tier Stevenage and whilst this may not be the glamour tie that many of their fans had in mind it is eminently winnable.

As a Barrow team pushing for automatic promotion from League 2 found out, they can be lethal with the partisan backing of the 4,200 strong Gallagher Stadium behind them and if Bivesh Gurung can pull another worldie out of his back pocket then there is every chance that they will be in the hat on Monday.

I will be following all that action with baited breath, but first I’ll be spending my Saturday lunchtime in South London. Having seen the Dons slaughter some 8th-tier Rams in the last round, preventing a huge upset, I will be hoping to see them create an upset of their own as the Tractor Boys come to visit.

Ipswich have been having a wonderful season in the Championship and look likely to be following Leicester City up to the top table next season. However, they have failed to win any of their last 5 matches and combined with an expected raft of changes there is hope for The True Dons to continue an excellent run of form that has seen them lose just once since the start of December.

I will be hoping for all these underdog stories to come true, but whatever team you’re cheering on this weekend I just hope that they’re not on the receiving end of any decisions as insultingly ridiculous as Dominic Calvin-Lewis’ red card at Selhurst Park yesterday.

Even the commentator said “if that’s a red card, the game is gone” and you would be hard pressed to find any fan who genuinely disagrees.