Rare foursome tees it up in FA Cup
LONDON -- In the dregs of baseball Septembers or NBA Aprils in deprived America, the fans of eliminated teams often sit in forlorn clumps amid empty seats, a familiar scene bearing the distinct aura of encroaching death.
Here in older, wiser England (plus Wales!), the ever-raging soccer season lurks one month from conclusion, yes, with multitudes already eliminated, yet deep down in the standings you can find certain pockets of fans reveling in a once-in-a-lifetime mirth.
That’s because the British brains of the 19th century had the wisdom to install a season-long, single-elimination tournament, the FA Cup, age 137, oldest soccer competition in the world, running from August to May with results counting separately from league play, with 731 teams at the outset this season, offering hope to the hopeless and sometimes even cheer to the cheerless.
Sure, the usual mastodons of the regular standings -- Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea -- also have dominated recent FA Cups, hogging the last 12 titles and 17 of the last 24 finalist slots, but then along has come enchanted 2008 to dispense a whole lot of Lilliput.
Here’s the blissfully motley foursome set for the FA Cup semifinals this weekend, as if the Las Vegas 51s, New Orleans Zephyrs and Iowa Cubs reached an alternate World Series:
Barnsley (north central England, east of Manchester). First FA Cup semifinal since 1912 or, as people put it nowadays, “the year the Titanic sank.” Languishing 21st in the 24-team second division that’s below the 20-team top tier. Fearing relegation to the third division, yet suddenly won magically at Liverpool in the round of 16, won against Chelsea in a quarterfinal, and loosed the fans of a buried team to storm the pitch.
Cardiff City (Wales). First FA Cup semifinal since 1927. Lying 12th in the 24-team second division. Spent 1985-2000 rattling around the third and fourth tiers. Upset top-division Middlesbrough, 2-0, on the road in the quarterfinals to loose “the tears of grown men,” said Vince Alm of the Cardiff City supporters’ club.
West Bromwich Albion (Birmingham, England’s Midlands). First FA Cup semifinal since 1982. Winner, 1968. Fairly storied history. Sitting fourth in the second division, hunting promotion to the top. Won a quarterfinal against Bristol Rovers of the third tier, thereby charmingly robbing the final four of even more charm.
Portsmouth (south coast of England). Here’s the lone top-division club in the final four (first time for that few since 1908). Resting a heady sixth in the English Premier League behind Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Everton, but still shocked Planet Earth with 1-0 quarterfinal win at Manchester United. Loud, indomitable fans, among the best in the solar system.
As the four tribes converge at -- violins, please -- W-W-W-Wembley Stadium, their giddiness alone argues for the concept of sports teams being able to play for more than one trophy per season.
Or just consider Mr. Alm’s blood pressure.
He’s the press officer for the supporters’ club, having followed Cardiff City for 40 of his 46 years. He has missed only five or six out of maybe 700 matches since 1995. Among all those matches on all those days in all that drizzle-or-worse, he ranks as No. 1 the afternoon of Sunday, March 9, at Middlesbrough way up on England’s East Coast, especially the closing five minutes.
“When the final whistle blew at Middlesbrough that day, a lot of people were reduced to tears,” he said. “You were just hugging everybody and anybody. Grown men were crying. An incredible feeling. You’re just blessed to be able to feel it.”
Now he’s organizing buses for London, sleeping insufficiently, crazed, and yet a regular check-up this week found his pressure at a fine 115/75, when “I’m normally 85-90” on the diastolic -- pause -- “with tablets,” he said. “You can’t say it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, because it’s more than a lifetime for a lot of people, 81 years,” he said, referring to 1927.
The FA Cup, he extolled, “has got no barriers. It’s not an exclusive cup. Anybody can take part.”
From amid delirium, he admits to sympathy for the big country over there, its losing or so-so teams annually forgotten, drifting to the pond floor like plankton or an old tire, no other prize for which to play.
After all, if it’s a fairy tale some years for soccer, a sport where anybody can win on a given day but usually doesn’t, imagine an all-in, April-to-September tournament in the more capricious sport of baseball, even including minor-league teams.
Sure, Yankees and Red Sox and such would win often, but every so often the whole chase could conclude in September with the Cubs blowing an insurmountable lead in the final and hordes of bandwagon Rays fans storming the field.
That’d be truly amazing.
