As something of an antidote to a depressing week of legal squabble featuring the billionaires at the top of English football I went to Market Harborough.
Rugby union dominates the sporting landscape around there, roughly halfway between Leicester and Northampton, two giants of the Premiership who were doing battle on that same day.
But the FA Cup was in town and there’s something about the competition that never fails to lift the spirits, even if it’s true that it isn’t what it was.
Greed has shifted priorities in football and knocked a fair bit of the charm from it.
The biggest, richest clubs can do without the inconvenience of FA Cup ties cluttering up their money-making process, especially those pesky replays wearing out the superstar players and leaving them susceptible to injuries.
FA Cup qualifying provided a welcome antidote to Manchester City’s legal squabble
Harborough Town overcame Bury in FA Cup fourth round qualifying on Saturday
On the biggest day in their history, Harborough Town reached the first round for the first time
They can do that sort of thing well enough for themselves, jetting off around the world for a parade of invitational friendlies and preseason tours while signing up to the ever-expanding array of international competitions.
To cope with these excessive demands, they assemble lavish squads and send out the fringe players who need a game in the cup competitions and still dominate those from lower tiers, which is dispiriting in another way, so the best of the FA Cup might be found these days at a different level.
Harborough Town of the Southern League Premier Central Division sold out for the biggest day in their history with a record crowd of 1,600 packed in, most of them leaning up against the barrier around the pitch, with a few letting off yellow smoke canisters as they beat Bury in the fourth qualifying round and made history by reaching the FA Cup proper for the first time.
They are a small club who count former England rugby captain Martin Johnson among their former players, and they are growing fast, running lots of teams from a complex of grass and 3G pitches on the edge of Market Harborough as the first team continues to break new ground.
Celebrations went on long after the final whistle and the clubhouse will be a bustling hub again on Monday as they discover their first-round opponents.
Bury decorated the occasion with 600 fans and the narrative of a proud club rising from the wreckage of successive ruinous owners which left a community without a football club that had been at its heart for 134 years.
The Shakers can now be found in the North West Counties Premier Division, the ninth tier of the English football pyramid, and are one of the prime examples of a need for independent regulation in football.
The irony being that they reside at Gigg Lane, about 10 miles north of the Etihad Stadium where Manchester City are currently pouring millions of pounds of legal muscle into its war with the Premier League.
City are pouring millions of pounds of legal muscle into its war with the Premier League
City’s wealthy owners want to cut free from the terms and conditions of English football
City’s wealthy owners want to cut free from the terms and conditions of English football, the box they ticked when they signed up. Others, too. The new wave of American owners would like to take league fixtures across the Atlantic.
They are all quietly longing for an end to the collective broadcasting deal. Let’s not forget the six who signed up to the idea of cutting loose in the European Super League.
All the haves want to have more. It was ever thus. More control, more money, more success. Less financial responsibility for the foundations upon which the game was built and enabled them to thrive and prosper into great clubs.
It doesn’t matter if City legends like Colin Bell started out at Bury. They won’t need the likes of Bury for that sort of thing in the future such is the might of City’s youth system and their scouting operation and transfer clout. They were too busy creating new legends such as Phil Foden, Erling Haaland and Lord Pannick.
All cheered on by modernists telling us we’ve never had it so good because there’s so many goals and tactical revolutions even though lots of teams simply seem incapable of defending properly.
But at least we have competitions like the FA Cup, still threading the English game together from its Victorian beginnings to the modern day, from the monied elite to the volunteers in the grassroots.
Five things I learned this week
1 – Saka’s injury will be a concern
Bukayo Saka has played a lot of football in the last couple of years and it will not have escaped Arsenal’s attention that a fair bit has been in an England shirt.
Of Saka’s last 100 appearances, 19 have been for his country. For Arsenal during that period, he played 63 times in the Premier League, 13 in European competition, two each in the FA Cup and Carabao Cup, and once in the FA Community Shield.
The sight of the 23-year-old trudging off during the defeat against Greece on Thursday will have concerned Mikel Arteta after Martin Odegaard was hurt playing for Norway last month.
Bukayo Saka has played a lot of football in recent years and his injury will be a concern
2 – Lee Carsley seems to hate talking to the media
The England manager’s job contains quite a lot of talking to the public via the media.
It wasn’t always that way. Sir Alf Ramsey wasn’t fond of that sort of thing and he did alright, but if you expect 80,000 to keep paying to watch you lose at home against Iceland or Greece then public messaging is important.
Gareth Southgate was very accomplished at it, which is one reason he looked so comfortable in the role for so long and Lee Carsley seems to hate it.
England interim manager Lee Carsley doesn’t appear to relish talking to the media
3 – The habit of players telling the crowd to make more noise is on the rise
The irritating habit of footballers gesturing towards the crowd to ‘get up’ and make some more noise is on the rise.
Jude Bellingham and Noni Madueke were both at it at Wembley last week. Madueke, who was winning his second cap, which seems to me probably too soon to be dictating the mood of the crowd by anything other than your football.
The irritating habit of footballers gesturing towards the crowd to ‘get up’ is on the rise
4 – Musah and Pochettino provide north London connections for USA
Yunus Musah scored the first goal in a 2-0 win against Panama to extend the North London connections across Mauricio Pochettino’s first game in charge of the USA.
New York-born Musah, now at AC Milan, spent seven years in Arsenal’s academy before leaving for Valencia in the same year Pochettino was fired by Tottenham.
Yunus Musah got his first international goal as Mauricio Pochettino won his first game as USA boss
Musah left Arsenal’s academy for Valencia in 2019, the same year Pochettino was fired by Tottenham
5 – Bradford’s Andy Cook relishes scoring against former clubs
Bradford’s Andy Cook is developing a knack of scoring goals against his former clubs
Bradford’s Andy Cook is topping the League Two goal charts with seven goals in 11 games and a happy knack of scoring against his former clubs.
Two against Tranmere for the 33-year-old on Saturday came after two against Carlisle in September and one in the Carabao Cup against Grimsby in August.
