The FA Cup Thread 2024

[Trollheart]

Team name: Chesham United v Lincoln City
Home city or town: Chesham v Lincoln
Area: Buckinghamshire v Lincolnshire
Nicknames: The Generals v The Imps
Match played at: The Meadow
Managers: James Duncan and Michael Murray v Michael Skubula
Currently playing in: National League South v EFL League 1
Tier: 5 v 3
Position (if available) or Form:++
Expectations:* Give it to the men in green, as they have made it further in previous FA Cups.
Giant Killers?** Yes
Best FA Cup run: Second round/Quarter-finals

This was the final match of the first round, played last night (Monday) and in a way both Chesham and Lincoln City must have felt a little like the last to leave the party, having sort of outstayed their welcome. By the time both teams walked out onto the Meadow, every other tie had been played and every other team matched up for the second round. Reminds me of that scene in Clockwise, where an irate and increasingly unstable John Cleese frowns at yet another person who has arrived to his speech - late - and groans "Yes, we're all waiting for you!" in the highly condescending voice he does so well as Basil Fawlty.

At any rate, Chesham were essentially shouldering and carrying the hopes of National League South, the only - only? Yes, checking I see a National League North team in the round two draw but none from the South - team yet left in it, and hoping, no doubt, to join their northern neighbour, Brackley Town, and take the final place for a chance to play League 1 Crawley Town. At home, and in front of a packed stadium, they may indeed have fancied their chances against the boys in green.

Unfortunately, the only videos I can find of highlights of the match are sans commentary, and I just can't figure out what's going on, showing how much we rely on those unsung heroes of televised sport. Where's a Steve Bauer when you need him, or a Vicky Sparks, which I believe is some sort of combustion vehicle. All I can, then, tell you is that Chesham gamely held the visitors off almost to half-time, but a minute before the break it was local hearts who broke as Jack Moylan put it in the net, to give Lincoln a one-nil lead going into the second half, after which it wasn't long before they were two up, five minutes into the second half. Looking to be an impossible task for the Generals now, who seemed to have lost all sense of strategy.

A third on 66 sealed it for the Imps, and Chesham's cause, already lost by now, was not helped when Adebiyi helped himself to a goal with three minutes to go, unfortunately down the wrong end. 4-0 then to Lincoln, who smash aside their lower tier competition and knock them out of the FA Cup, and go on to face Crawley Town, who should hopefully prove more worthy opponents.

Result: Chesham United 0 - 4 Lincoln City
Scorer(s): Moylan, Makama, McGrandles, Adebiyi (og) (LIN)
Giant killing? No
Giant killings grand total: 11
Prediction turned out to be: Right
Predictions final result: R17 W17

[Trollheart]

So that's it. The famous FA Cup winnowing process has begun, and those who fell at the first fence no longer get a chance to redress their performance in a replay, since the FA have, in their wisdom, put a stop to that process, and everyone gets one chance now to make it to the second round. This didn't stop quite a few matches ending in draws, and in a few that draw continued even after extra time had been played, with the result that this FA Cup must have featured the most penalty shoot-outs of any in its history, and is likely to serve up more as we go into the second and further rounds.

Teams eliminated

For now, here are the teams that did not make it, and how they were eliminated from the competition, in alphabetical order.

Aldershot Town fell to Bradford City 3-1

Alfreton Town were defeated by one of the bigger scores of the round, 5-1 to Notts County

Barnet were beaten by Exeter City by the joint highest score of the first round, taking them 5-3

Barrow fell to Doncaster Rovers 1-0

Bolton were kicked out by Walsall 2-1

Boreham Wood held Leyton Orient to a 2-2 draw after extra time, but lost 3-1 on penalties

Braintree Town and Brackley Town fought out a 0-0 draw into extra time and could only be separated by penalties, which Brackley took 5-4

Carlisle United fell 2-0 to Wigan Athletic

Chesham United fell 4-0 to Lincoln City

Colchester United went out 2-1 to Swindon Town

Crewe Alexandra went out to Dagenham & Redbridge 1-0

Curzon Ashton were defeated by Mansfield Town by the largest score without reply, 4-0

Fleetwood Town went out on a 2-0 defeat to Reading

Forest Green Rovers went down 2-0 to Stockport County

Gillingham fell to Blackpool 2-0

Grimsby were sent home by Wealdstone for 1-0

Hednesford Town and Gainsborough Trinity fought out a dogged 4-4 draw, Trinity winning the penalty shootout 5-4

Horsham went down 3-1 to Chesterfield

Huddersfield Town fell to Tamworth 1-0

Maidenhead went down 2-1 to Crawley Town

Maidstone United went out 3-0 to Solihull Moors

MK Dons were dumped out by AFC Wimbledon 2-0

Newport County fell to Peterborough United 4-2

Northampton Town fell to Kettering Town 2-1

Oldham Athletic dumped Tranmere Rovers out by 2-1

Port Vale fell to Barnsley 3-1

Rochdale were beaten 4-3 by Bromley

Rotherham were taken by Cheltenham Town 3-1

Rushall Olympic lost 2-0 to Accrington Stanley

Scarborough Athletic were sent out by Burton Albion 1-0

Shrewsbury went down 2-1 to Salford City

Southend United were beaten 4-3 by Charlton Athletic

Stevenage and Guiseley fought out an unlikely 1-1 draw into extra time and Stevenage won 5-4 on penalties

Sutton United went out 1-0 to Birmingham City

Tonbridge Angels went down 4-1 to Harborough Town

Weston-super-Mare fell to Bristol Rovers 3-1

Woking went out to Cambridge United 1-0

Worthing went down to Morecambe 2-0

Wrexham fell to Harrogate Town 1-0

York City went out to Wycombe Wanderers 3-2


Giant Killings
In all, we've had eleven teams knocked out by ones below them. You can bet there'll be statistics to back this up, but for now, here's the list, again in alphabetical order.


Braintree Town
Bolton Wanderers
Crewe Alexandra
Grimsby Town
Huddersfield Town
MK Dons
Northampton Town
Rotherham United
Shrewsbury Town
Tranmere Rovers
Wrexham

[Trollheart]

That's right: it's that section you all love, the dry, boring statistics.


Out of 80 teams, naturally only 40 remain, but what's interesting is that there have been 11 major teams eliminated, i.e., 11 giant killings, which is almost 14%, but is actually larger because if you count up the teams from the two divisions of the EFL, 47 in all, there have been 10 of them knocked out. In other words, all but 1 of the giant killings have featured teams from League 1 or 2 being dismissed. So slightly over 20% of the EFL teams have been knocked out. That's a lot.

In terms of scores, we've had some pretty high scores, but a few have been draws.

Highest to lowest then:
5-3 (1)
5-1 (1)
4-4 (1)
4-3 (3)
4-2 (1)
4-1 (1)
4-0 (2)
3-2 (1)
3-1 (5)
3-0 (1)
2-2 (1)
2-1 (7)
2-0 (6)
1-1 (1)
1-0 [8]
0-0 (1)

So it's quite interesting to see that a grand total of one match ended in a nil-all draw (before going to extra time/penalties), and in fact only three other matches ended in any sort of a draw, so four in all, including that 4-4 thriller between Harborough Town and Gainsborough Trinity. The most common score was 1-0, 8 matches ending with one team winning by just the one goal, the next highest being 2-1, where seven matches either ended in a turnaround for the winning team, or had them ahead 2 before being pegged back but still winning. 2-0 is next, with six matches resulting in the winning team putting two past the losers without reply, and the next highest is 3-1, with five matches ending with a two-goal lead by the winners on the losers.

It's fairly evenly split then between the rest of the scores, the highest being 5-3 and 5-1, both only occurring once in this first round, but interestingly, the next highest, 4-3, happened in three matches.

[Trollheart]

Here's the table then showing the draw for the Second Round. Yellow denotes giant killers.



Matches will be played from November 29 to Dec 2. So I'll meet you back here after that.