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FA CUP GIANT KILLING BLAST FROM THE PAST
It's what the FA Cup is all about! That's right, pundits blather on and on about 'upsets' and 'giant-killings' and 'not the tie they would have wanteds' whilst all the while secretly yearning for a Man United versus Arsenal final. Yet despite the implausibility of lower league opposition beating their more illustrious rivals, in the 3rd round of the Cup a shock does seem to happen more often than a Sunderland defeat (btw, come on Northwich!).
And I suppose that's the meaning of the phrase 'the romance of the cup' that every dreary-arse 'expert' wheels out time after time. Romance here meaning seeing Premier League opposition being forcibly gang-raped by some no-name minnows from the Conference. Seriously, it's about as euphemistic as 'making love' is for 'fucking'.
But still it all sticks in the memory and Boro have had their fair share of being at both ends of this exchange. As fans we have tasted the humiliated disappointment of lower league defeat, the euphoria of beating title contenders and the unique emotional turmoil that is a turgid struggle against the likes of Notts County. Maybe this is what the FA Cup is all about but then maybe it's about a lot of things. I will let your memories do the talking.
Megaphone Man
Middlesbrough 2-2 Bishop Stortford, 08/01/1983
There was quite a build up to this home game and there was a definite feeling of excitement as Bishop Stortford came to Town. Their main threat was a forward by the name of Lyndon Lynch, he had been having a cracking season for them and in those days anyone who was big and bald was going to be good.
For this game I took up my normal seat next to the away fans in the East End Seats. Anchored to the touchline there was a large inflatable bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale. That was it for me, this game was huge now, to my young teenage mind this bottle of brown was the equivalent of somebody flying into the ground wearing a jet pack and landing on the pitch.
I think this is the bit in my report that I now wax lyrical about the match but all I remember is Lyndon looked big and his head was shined, he scored 2 and so did my hero Ste Bell. It was a good match from what I can remember, which is very little.
Retro Barker
Sutton United 1-1 Middlesbrough, 09/01/1988
Middlesbrough 1-0 Sutton United, 12/01/1988
It was close- I remember both games.
We played them at their gaff first. Boro were sporting an all new third choice kit especially for the game- it was all white. Anyway we managed to draw 1-1, (Pallister scored with a header if I recall?) but we had our scares.
I went to the replay at Ayresome. I remember before the match the Sutton Utd keeper was warming up in front of me at the Holgate End. We started chanting "Sutton" (taking the piss obviously). Their keeper turned around to applaud the Boro fans at which point a fan threw a battery at the keeper, knocking him out to the floor.
The keeper needed several stitches in his head before the match had even kicked off. At the kick off we were already being told that we were getting reported to the FA. I can't remember our punishment.
Anyway, we won with a 1-0 win. Paul "Cuddly Bear" Kerr definitely scored.
Big turn out at Ayresome too! 17,000. I remember thinking this was a big turn out for a non-league side!
A Cam Goes Wandering
Chesterfield 3-3 Middlesbrough, 13/04/1997
Not much of a one to talk about but my near-giant killing memory comes from the 1997 FA Cup semi-final. I wasn't actually at the game but was working in the US at the time. In fact I'd gone to the Cola-Cup Final the Sunday before and then went straight to Gatwick and flown out to Baltimore. Anyway, the week after and I'm still working in Baltimore but have the weekend off. I had thought about flying back for the semi-final but figured that I would be dead if I did and besides I didn't have the money.
So to console myself I took myself to Washington for the day, confident in the fact that the Boro would slaughter the mighty Chesterfield. So I wandered around the Potomac with a happy tune in my heart- I believe it was Whistle While You Work- impressed by the Jefferson Memorial as there was no one there. Wandered up the lawn and past the Lincoln memorial (which was packed), past the Washington Monument, turned left and went to the White House.
Saw a Secret Service Agent- I knew he was a secret service agent because he had a big badge on his arm saying "Secret Service"- and thought "The Boro have probably brushed aside Chesterfield I'll go to the British Embassy and ask what the score was- even though it's Sunday, there's bound to be staff there". So I asked the Secret Service guy and he told me where to go. So I found a policeman and asked him instead and he gave me directions.
When I got there it was closed- bloody typical of the British Government. So I found a call box but realised I didn't have any change. Went to a shop to get some and found another call box. This was 1997 before tri-band mobiles were common place. When I finally got through to someone they advised me to sit down- it was my mate who'd been watching it on TV. Naturally I feared the worst. Anyway I spoke to another mate who'd been there and he told me that if their "goal" had been allowed he was ready to leave then and there even though he'd gone by coach and would have had to wait 20 extra mins.
I got back the week after and lo and behold I found that the group I worked in had two Chesterfield supporters- funny that they hadn't mentioned it before. Fair enough both were from Chesterfield but to the best of my knowledge they had previously been Chelsea and Leeds supporters. One of them turned back into a Chelsea supporter a couple of weeks later. And they went on and on and on about the "goal" (I didn't know why it had been disallowed). This was despite me pointing out that Kinder never should have been sent off (oh why will no one admit that this was the real injustice of the match?) and that their penalty had a diving performance that would have made Greg Louganis jealous- it never was and never should have been! And OK our penalty was outside the box but considering we'd been playing with 10 men for 70 mins I think that was fair enough.
I managed to get to the replay and I still say that if Juninho's goal had been allowed that would have been a cricket score or at the very least the sort of score you'd expect England's rugby union side to get against Albania.
Anyway by this time I found that the Chesterfield supporters had turned back into Leeds and Chelsea supporters and we had one of the best Cup Finals ever- for 43 seconds...
And finally Harry Haverton casts his net far and wide to sum up how the Boro have faired against lower league opposition over the last thirty years.
It is far too painful to recall defeats to Bury circa 1976, Orient 1978, Tranmere and Wrexham in the late 90's/early Noughties and various other shadowy memories that eclipse our occasional almost successful FA Cup runs.
In 1976-77 we were giant killers ourselves when Arsenal visited Ayresome Park with aspirations of lifting the trophy themselves. We were first division as well but they were the Cup favourites and nobody really gave us a chance.
A David Mills hat trick shot us into the quarter finals in a pulsating 4-1 win that had the Match of the Day pundits trying to dampen the fire by saying that Millsy never got a hat trick because his three goals were not scored consecutively. Bloody rubbish! That was a hat trick alright and one of the highest order as well. As usual, we thought we were going to win the Cup that year but we didn't!
George Hardwick once said that there was a curse on Boro in the FA Cup and if you've been following Boro as long as I have, you may well believe it.
I certainly believed it in 1995 as we were giant killed by Swansea City at home in a third round replay after a 1-1 draw at their place. John Hendrie scored our consolation in a shock 2-1 defeat but we made the final for the first time two years later. Next time we do that I'm sure we'll bring the trophy home curse or no curse.
Finally as an interesting aside, Lyndon Lynch, a scorer for non-League Bishop Stortford in their 2-2 draw at Ayresome Park in 1983 became the coach of the England Learning Disabilities Team who made it all the way to the Learning Disabilities World Cup Final in 2002. Who says you can't move on to bigger, better things, aye?
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