It's always sunny in Wembley

Locating the magic touch of the FA Cup.

Mar 20, 2023

Words: Sam Parry

Without googling, I couldn’t tell you who won the FA Cup last.

Is it my age? Do football fans, as they get older, grow weary of cup ties that will eventually lead to certain defeat by a bigger, richer club?

The FA Cup was once a social event. Friends and families gathering around screens to watch two teams they don’t support vying for victory to secure a place in the draw for the next round of a competition from which their own club have already been eliminated. Event television, that’s what it was. Box office stuff that fired up anticipation like the bullet that caught Phil Mitchell.

There was always a Wenger or a Ferguson, a Keane or a Viera, and later, a Gerrard or a Lampard. There were harkings back to the Dribbly Ones (Giggs, Villa) and the Crazy Gangs (Wimbledon). There was always a surprise, a cupset too. And I loved all that back then.

Now, what is the FA Cup? To me, it’s just an ending and a beginning. An elliptical dot on a season-just-gone that I’m either still buzzing from or trying to forget…

…maybe it is an age thing?

But maybe not. No EFL club has reached a semi-final since *checks notes* Reading in 2015 and before that, Sheffield United and Wigan in 2014/15.

However…

This year’s FA Cup run has inspired a different feeling. One reminiscent of Coventry Shootouts; Blades’ players hauled off the pitch against Arsenal; Kabba thumping home; Seaman saves; Andy Liddle at the double; Villa away: That boy Chris Porter, he’s going to Brazil; half-time against Hull; Wembley - eurgh - not again. Our form has been filled with a sense of edge and edginess, whereas before - and for a bloody long time - cup stuff just seemed a bit meh!

FA Cup 3rd Round

Highlights: Millwall 0-2 Sheffield United - BBC Sport

Where did it start? Oh yeah, Millwall.

We played ideologically in that game. Untarnished by the need to shore up a lofty league position. Towards a doctrine of playing it out of the back, moving it fast, and taking risks.

The line-up, the performance and the result were very similar to our 2-1 victory over Sunderland last week. Jebbison and Ndiaye up top. McAtee playing up and around them. It was zippy and quick and bloody wet. But it wasn’t a slick playing surface that smoothed out the friction; I think it was the lack of pressure. There was an easy, arrogant weightlessness about us that day.

It was the FA Cup, and it was fun. And that felt new.

FA Cup 4th Round - first leg

Highlights: Wrexham 3-3 Sheffield United - BBC Sport

Constructive listlessness was not to follow against Wrexham in the next round. The stakes were different. Not only was this not a league tie, but it wasn’t Millwall either; not a Championship colleague.

I don’t think it’s accurate to say we occupied the shadows of a Hollywood melodrama, although a proliferating gaggle of camera crews did choose to light us up dimly. We were very much the antagonists; we were Goliath (who as everyone knows, loses) Against all logic, we occupied the damp dwelling of the (under)dog house. A bigger club, playing much higher up the ladder, and yet also unfancied.

The nation was desperate for a Wrexham win. The officials were desperate to send off Daniel Jebbison. And our players… well, they conspired to turn a 0-1 lead into 2-1. Then they let 2-2 slip to 3-2, where Paul Mullin’s would-be winner was described by the commentator as the winner.

…it wasn’t.

And so, when John Egan thundered home an equaliser against a fifth-tier side in the fourth round of the FA Cup, it was fun once again.

Those shifting stakes - big vs little, villain vs goody-two-shoes, Norwood vs Hollywood - they sparked a spectre of childhood, round-the-sofa FA Cup moments. And that felt new too.

FA Cup 4th Round - second leg

Highlights: Sheffield United 3-1 Wrexham - BBC Sport

In the aftermath of that draw in the first leg, we learnt of our fate: one of us would play Spurs…Spurs! A big tie and at home to boot. In a moment of arrogance, Wrexham’s social media took to tweeting the team they hadn’t played since 1981:

Wrexham AFC @Wrexham_AFC

👀 @SpursOfficial 🔴⚪️ #WxmAFC

Palmer Mullin and Lee doing the Son celebration

Ha!

Why do that? It rubbed up a lot of people - Billy Sharp included - the wrong way. So I cared when we beat them. A big bad Sheffield United 3-1 win. Against who? Wrexham.

Why did I care? I don’t know. Caring that my club had just put a sock in Wrexham’s Hollywood gob. Riled up like Matt Le Tissier on a COVID chat room. Checking through their fixtures to see who they had next (Wealdstone) and tweeting with all the good grace of boxing weigh-in.

And all of that felt fun and delightful and cathartic and new.

FA Cup 5th Round

Highlights: Sheffield United 1-0 Tottenham - BBC Sport

In the league, we’d lost to Middlesborough and Millwall in back-to-back games. I found the Millwall defeat particularly galling because, at 2-2, we looked the more likely. Then we had to suffer that horrid song: Let ‘em all come down to The Den (been there in the cup mate - and we won!).

A day after that defeat, I flew to Thailand for what seemed a well-timed holiday: forget the fixtures. So I missed the 1-0 over Watford, and I would be missing the game against Spurs.

It was the first day of March, an evening kick-off in Sheffield. Thailand is seven hours ahead, so there was no chance of watching it. I told myself: forget about it. But you can’t. Not knowing is an affliction. It gets in where water can’t and chews at the edge of your unconscious thinking. And so I woke up in the middle of the night. Checked my phone and the game was still playing.

I promise you, on my first refresh of the BBC Live Commentary page…..

Iliman Ndiaye scores a “wonderful” goal

Christ. We were going to do it. Against Spurs. And we did.

And that felt new anorl.

FA Cup Quarter Final

Highlights: Sheffield United 3-2 Blackburn - BBC Sport

And whatever sense of newness had accompanied every other game, it all boiled down to a Quarter Final and to Blackburn Rovers.

I hadn’t thought much of them when they played us earlier in the season. In fact, I’d rank them in the worst three teams we’d played at home (along with Reading and Swansea).

Would I have taken a defeat in this cup encounter to guarantee a victory in our previous league game? Probably. Although, when we got here, I wanted it. Cos you remember those big days even if they’re bad. What passes as run-of-the-mill for some, for the biggest clubs, is magic to us. A semi-final up for grabs; history! And history isn’t good or bad, it’s just history. Be part of it.

We didn’t get out of the traps - they pressed us. But after five minutes toiling against their press, we looked head and shoulders above em. When they got a luckyish penalty (I would’ve wanted it were the boot on the other foot), I wasn’t worried. I really fancied us. I don’t know why.

And so we clawed it back with a duly lucky Max Lowe shot. And then it was 1-2, after a duly crap one-touch pass by Max Lowe that let them in. And then it was 2-2 after a great Max Lowe touch-off to McBurnie who shimmied and twisted and fired home. And then…it felt inevitable didn’t it?

But it wasn’t.

I made it that Tommy Doyle (my MotM) had taken three shots already. All of em on target. You’d have thought Blackburn might have latched onto that. Done summat about it. They didn’t, and he smacked the fourth effort home.

And that took us to Wembley. And despite every historical failure in that stadium, it feels pretty new, doesn’t it? It’s been years. Might not feel like it, but it has.

WEM-BER-LY. A lot of water under a lot of bridges.