An FA Cup quarter-final lineup that Ron Manager would approve of | Soccer

UP FOR THE CUP

Football Daily didn’t get where it is today wittering on like Ron Manager about the magic of the FA Cup. However, we are old enough to remember the glory days when the final was a day-long showpiece TV event. Interviews on the team bus to Wembley … yes, please. Ossie’s knees all trembly, eh? Helicopters overhead, isn’t it? Saint & Greavsie. Trevor Brooking scores with a header despite famously not scoring many headers, you know. Eh? The Crazy Gang v The Culture Club. Sweaty shirts and muddy boots. Buttonhole carnations, Steve Foster’s headband and Smith must score. The Anfield Rap. Brian Moore’s “another look at referee Hackett’s watch”. Kevin Moran’s red card. Mick Channon and “the boy Line-acre”, innit? Gary Mabbutt’s knee. Halcyon days. Marvellous.

In recent decades, the famous old competition has undeniably lost of some of its allure, with the subject of it losing its magic becoming so hackneyed that not only have radio phone-ins about the FA Cup losing its magic lost their magic, but even this email’s flogged-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life riff on radio phone-ins about the FA Cup losing its magic losing their magic has long since lost its magic. Mercifully, help is finally at hand in the form of a quarter-final draw for this year’s competition that is, if not Harry Potter-esque, at least far more open than the top of the double-decker bus on which the eventual winners will hopefully parade along the streets of – with all due respect to serial FA Cup-hogger Pep – Fulham, Birmingham, Croydon, Preston, Bournemouth, Brighton, Nottingham or Ipswich.

Having failed to achieve a single thing of note throughout Football Daily’s 40+ years of taking an interest in football, the mighty Preston North End have happily taken on what Rio Ferdinand would describe as the mantelpiece of this year’s fairytale side, the anti-yoyo, never-go-up never-go-down Championship staples becoming the lowest ranked team left in the competition after becoming the first team to score against Burnley since every team and their dog were banging them in for fun during the Vincent Kompany b@ntz era. Having secured a home draw against Aston Villa, who are no great shakes on the road, who is to say that Paul Heckingbottom’s side cannot go on to add to their tally of two FA Cup wins, the last of which came in 1938.

Without wins to their name at all, Fulham, Palace, Bournemouth and Brighton will also fancy their chances while, Manchester City aside, the most recent skipper of the remaining trio of Nottingham Forest, Ipswich and Aston Villa to receive the Cup from the gloved hands of female royalty was Portman Road legend Mick Mills in 1978. It was Princess Alexandra, the Honorable Lady Ogilvy who did the honours over 40 years ago but she has since been replaced on Wembley duty by Prince William. While the heir to the throne would almost certainly like nothing better than to present this season’s trophy to John McGinn, he’s been in the game long enough to be able to plaster on a fake smile when Aston Villa or whichever other side of plucky pre-tournament outsiders are inevitably steamrollered by Manchester City.

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 QUOTE OF THE DAY

You know how many shots went over? Look at other games. Normally the ball goes inside from these shots” – Pep Guardiola blames the FA Cup ball for his Manchester City players peppering shots into the Etihad stands with alarming regularity in their FA Cup win over Plymouth. The FA said his complaints were a load of balls.

What percentage of people in the man v beast survey (Friday’s Football Daily) thought they could beat a lion? Just wondering, as the chap in the Road to Wembley photo looks pretty confident” – Jim Hearson.

As a teenager of the 1980s, I was delighted to see Football Daily quote Echo & The Bunnymen’s The Cutter in Friday’s last line. As singer Ian McCulloch is famously a Liverpool fan, he may now with some Pride be expecting Silver in May whilst reminding us In Bluer Skies down the East Lancs Road that, in The Game we love, Nothing Lasts Forever” – Nick Howarth Pulleyn (and no other 80s indie fans).

I look forward to Big Sir Jim’s latest menu at the cut-price Old Trafford restaurant offering Feeble Wings, saucy headlines, Nevilled eggs and, of course, a proper stuffing – but nothing from the Glazer gravy train” – Mark McFadden.

When Millwall manager Alex Neil said of this kamikaze challenge, by his goalkeeper on Jean-Philippe Mateta, that ‘he’s tried to get the ball, he’s mistimed it and caught the lad’ – presumably he means ‘mistimed’ in the sense that a better time would have been at the World Karate Championships in August” – Noble Francis.

Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s letter o’ the day winner is … Mark McFadden, who gets our last copy of David Squires’ latest book Chaos in The Box. We’ll be in touch. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here. 

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