The FA Cup Thread 2024

[Trollheart]

Team name: Peterborough Sports
Home city or town: Peterborough
Area: Cambridgeshire
Nickname: The Turbines
Home ground: Lincoln Road
Manager: Michael Gash and Luke Steele
Currently playing in: National League North
Tier: 6
First opponent in Round One: Accrington Stanley **++
Highest position achieved: Current I think
Giant Killing(s) None
Best FA Cup run: Fourth qualifying round
Rivals: Unknown

So little I can tell you about these guys, who spent all their time playing in really lower regional leagues. Just don't mix them up with the next team, who are a whole different kettle of pisceans.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Peterborough United
Home city or town: Peterborough
Area: Cambridgeshire
Nickname: The Posh
Home ground: London Road
Manager: Darren Ferguson
Currently playing in: EFL League 1
Tier: 3
First opponent in Round One: Newport County
Highest position achieved: Championship
Giant Killing(s) Arsenal, Swansea City (1965)
Best FA Cup run: Quarter-finals
Rivals: Cambridge United, Northampton Town (though oddly enough, not Peterborough Sports!), Huddersfield Town, Lincoln City, MK Dons,

Yeah, this is the team a certain Victoria Beckham tried to sue for using the name "posh", until it was pointed out to her - something she and her lawyers, if they were serious and not just looking for publicity, should have known - that Peterborough have been around since the thirties, and though Posh Spice might be looking in need of a little tune-up these days, she ain't 90 years old! I imagine poor David was mortified. 

Peterborough are, then, one of the "younger older" clubs, having been founded in the twentieth rather than the nineteenth century, 1934 to be precise. They've had mixed fortunes, playing the Fourth Division and reaching the heady heights of the Championship, and are managed by Alex Ferguson's son, which kind of makes me hate them.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Port Vale
Home city or town: Burslem
Area: Stoke-on-Trent
Nickname: The Valiants (isn't there another team with that nickname? Mind you, that's nothing new: we have three calling themselves the Magpies, another three calling themselves the Reds and two using The Red Devils)
Home ground: Vale Road
Manager: Darren Moore
Currently playing in: EFL League 2
Tier: 4
First opponent in Round One: Barnsley
Highest position achieved: EFL League 1
Giant Killing(s) Tottenham Hotspur (2-1, 1988); Everton (2-1, 1996)
Best FA Cup run: Semi-finals
Rivals: Stoke City, Crewe Alexandra, Walsall, Shrewsbury Town, Burton Albion, Wolves, Macclesfield

Whether they were formed in 1876 or 1879, (dates are disputed) Port Vale are one of the older clubs, one of those who existed before the turn of the century. That one, not this. However that particular team did not do well and only lasted till 1907, when they were disbanded. Then five years later Cobridge Church decided, for reasons best known no doubt to themselves, to rename themselves as Port Vale, and so the second incarnation of the club, as it were, was born. The new club, to quote Jim Hacker in Yes Minister, did all right, and had some success in the league in the 1930s, but fell out of favour in the sixties when they were accused of the old chestnut, financial irregularities. They were relegated out of the Football League, but won a reprieve on appeal.

In 2012 they were in hot water with Her Majesty's Customs and Excise, and unable to pay players, staff or any of their creditors they entered administration for most of the year.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Reading
Home city or town: Reading
Area: Berkshire
Nickname: The Royals, The Ding, The Biscuitmen
Home ground: Madejski Stadium
Manager: Ruben Selles
Currently playing in: EFL League 1
Tier: 3
First opponent in Round One: Fleetwood Town
Highest position achieved: Premier League
Giant Killing(s) None
Best FA Cup run: Semi-finals
Rivals: Aldershot Town, Swinford Town, Oxford United

One of the oldest teams in England, Reading have seen the dizzying heights of the Premier League, though it took them over 80 years to get there. Only the second team I've read about to have gone on tour outside of England at that time, Reading had a very successful tour of Italy in 1913, impressing the sports press there, who called them "the finest foreign team seen in Italy."

In 1994 Reading were denied their first season in the Premier League as, though they had finished top of the Championship, the Premier League had been changed that year from 22 teams to just 20, which meant there was no room at the inn, so to speak. They would have to wait another 12 years before they could take their place at the top of England's Football League, where they managed two seasons before being relegated. But they would be back. 2012 saw them again promoted to the top flight, though this time it would be just a single season before they were back in the Championship.

Another team in difficult financial waters, in 2023 Reading were handed a points deduction for being unable to pay their players and also their taxes, and the club was put up for sale. In January of this year, with the current owner still in control, fans invaded the pitch in protest and a match between Reading and Port Vale had to be called off. Nevertheless, from what I read, the issues have not been sorted and Reading continue to receive deduction after deduction from the EFL.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Rochdale
Home city or town: Rochdale
Area: Greater Manchester
Nickname: The Dale
Home ground: Spotland Stadium
Manager: Jimmy McNulty
Currently playing in: National League
Tier: 5
First opponent in Round One: Bromley
Highest position achieved: EFL League 1
Giant Killing(s) Leeds United (2-0, 2014)
Best FA Cup run: Fifth round
Rivals: Bury, Oldham Athletic, Burnley, Halifax Town, Stockport County, Wigan Athletic, Accrington Stanley, Bolton Wanderers, Bradford City

Although it has nothing to do with this, I'd just like to mention that when I entered Rochdale in the search bar on Wiki, I shuddered to see, just below the entry on the team, "Rochdale Child Sex Abuse Ring". Thank Christ I don't have to read that! No reflection on the people of Rochdale, or indeed Manchester, who I'm sure were all horrified by the story, but it's not something I want to read.

And luckily, I don't, so let's turn to more pleasant topics. Well, not so pleasant maybe for Rochdale, who have spent so long in EFL League 1 that some have apparently called it "The Rochdale League", as they've spent 36 seasons there. And honestly, not much else I can tell you.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Rotherham United
Home city or town: Rotherham
Area: South Yorkshire
Nickname: The Millers
Home ground: New York Ground (long way to go to play your matches!)
Manager: Steve Evans
Currently playing in: EFL League 1
Tier: 3
First opponent in Round One: Cheltenham Town
Highest position achieved: Championship
Giant Killing(s) None
Best FA Cup run: Unknown; don't think they ever qualified before now
Rivals: Unknown

I don't know if it is, but I think a 17-point deduction has to rank as one of the largest, if not the largest fine levied on an English football club in history. Naturally, this came about due to empty pockets, and Rotherham were coming close to going into administration before they were saved. No easy job, being a football manager, but try being a chairman! After this massive deduction, Rotherham were forced to leave their home ground, where they had played for a century, unable to pay the rent.

They didn't let this affect them though, and fought hard to kill the deficit, ending the season at the top of the league and earning promotion. Promoted again, and now playing in the Championship, they were hit by yet another deduction, which really wrecked them and had them fighting for survival, which they achieved. The next season was harder though, and ended in relegation for them, but they were soon back up. And down. And up again. And down.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Rushall Olympic
Home city or town: Rushall
Area: West Midlands
Nickname: The Pics
Home ground: Dale Lane
Manager: Adam Stevens
Currently playing in: National League  North
Tier: 6
First opponent in Round One: Accrington Stanley
Highest position achieved: Current
Giant Killing(s) None
Best FA Cup run: First round
Rivals: Unknown

Not a whole lot to tell really (you didn't actually expect there to be, did you?) and for a team with "Olympic" as their suffix, maybe they're reaching too high? Rushall spent most of their career in the regional leagues, where generally they did as well as could be expected, but this is the highest they've ever been.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Salford City
Home city or town: Salford
Area: Greater Manchester
Nickname: The Ammies (uh?)
Home ground: Moor Lane
Manager: Karl Robinson
Currently playing in: EFL League 2
Tier: 4
First opponent in Round One: Shrewsbury Town
Highest position achieved: Current
Giant Killing(s) Notts County (2-0, 2015)
Best FA Cup run: First round
Rivals: Oldham Athletic, Stockport County, Rochdale, Bolton Wanderers, Macclesfield Town, Crewe Alexandra, Accrington Stanley, Leyton Orient

Okay, the odd nickname is short for amateurs, as Salford were both once known as Salford Church and Salford Amateurs before changing to their current name. Well, that's cleared that up. Oh dear: you know what league you're playing in when you lose out on promotion to Prescot Cables, don't you? Might as well have been vying with Harry's DIY Cabin or Maud's Fish and Chips Emporium! Salford achieved much more success and social standing when they became kind of Man United-lite, after a consortium consisting of ex-players Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes, Gary and Phil Neville, David Beckham and Ryan Giggs bought a stake in the club. Can't imagine what possessed them, but there you are. Football's a funny old game.

I do have to wonder though, when they played their newly-owned team themselves in a friendly match before the opening of the 2014 season, and lost 5-1, if the Man U legends hadn't let them win? I mean, Salford's record hardly had them raining goals, and against a bunch of legends from the Red Devils? Still, maybe the old guys were past it, who knows? Good for morale though, both being bought by them and also beating them. Also good for morale - if a trifle ambitious, not to say living in a land with clocks with birds in them and formations of water vapour - was the owners' intention to make Salford a Premier League side! Ah here now: they had only made it into the National League North (tier 6) that year! Of course, they didn't say when, so I suppose promotion in 2054 might be an outside possibility?

Well to be fair, they did start well, being promoted in 2018 to the National League, but after six years, they've got as far as EFL League 2, and if they manage to make the Premier League before I die, I'll eat my head. No, it's not a misprint: read some Dickens, why don't ya?

[Trollheart]

Team name: Scarborough Athletic
Home city or town: Scarborough
Area: South Yorkshire
Nickname: The Seadogs
Home ground: Flamingo Land Stadium
Manager: Jonathan Greening
Currently playing in: National League North
Tier: 6
First opponent in Round One: Burton Albion
Highest position achieved: Current
Giant Killing(s) None
Best FA Cup run: First round
Rivals: Unknown

Scarborough is of course famous both for its fair, and for the song that made it famous, or at least gave it worldwide fame, by two lads you probably never heard of, Simon & Gar-something or other. But it would appear this is a team with something of an identity crisis. I mean, look at them: they call themselves the Seadogs, play at the Flamingo Land Stadium (in Scarborough? Where do they think there are? Vegas?) and have a seagull on their crest! Some sorting out to do, methinks.

A real new kid on the block, they've only been in existence since 2007, not even wet behind the ears yet. Mind you, they arose from the demise of the original Scarborough, who persisted from 1879 and collapsed due to not having enough cash. So whether we can consider them one of the youngest or oldest of the clubs, one thing followed them, and it was that damn seagull they just don't seem to be able to get off their ball. Then again, who in his right mind would try to shoo a seagull away? They're vicious, man! You want the ball, you take it. We have others.

They also faced problems with the FA, being given a 6-point deduction and a "massive" fine of, um, £300 for fielding an ineligible player but they managed to survive the season and the following one saw them top of the table. What? No: some obscure counties league, I don't know.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Shrewsbury Town
Home city or town: Shrewsbury
Area: Shropshire
Nickname: The Shrews, Salop, The Town
Home ground: New Meadow
Manager: Paul Hurst
Currently playing in: EFL League 1
Tier: 3
First opponent in Round One: Salford City
Highest position achieved: Current
Giant Killing(s) Everton (2-1, 2003)
Best FA Cup run: Quarter-finals
Rivals: Hereford United, Chester, Wrexham, Walsall, Wolves, Port Vale, Telford United

Oh, you have to feel for a team that played at Gay Meadow, don't you? Of course, that was in 1910, when the word meant something completely different to what it does today, or even twenty years ago. Then again, they were there almost a full century, so plenty of time for rival supporters to grin and point and say "Dude! That place is so gay!" But enough frivolity. These days they play at the much more sexually-neutral New Meadow, so memories of all those sarcastic comments are gone. Probably.

[jimmy jazz]

Team name: Rotherham United
Home city or town: Rotherham
Area: South Yorkshire
Nickname: The Millers
Home ground: New York Ground (long way to go to play your matches!)
Manager: Steve Evans
Currently playing in: EFL League 1
Tier: 3
First opponent in Round One: Cheltenham Town
Highest position achieved: Championship
Giant Killing(s) None
Best FA Cup run: Unknown; don't think they ever qualified before now
Rivals: Unknown

I don't know if it is, but I think a 17-point deduction has to rank as one of the largest, if not the largest fine levied on an English football club in history. Naturally, this came about due to empty pockets, and Rotherham were coming close to going into administration before they were saved. No easy job, being a football manager, but try being a chairman! After this massive deduction, Rotherham were forced to leave their home ground, where they had played for a century, unable to pay the rent.

They didn't let this affect them though, and fought hard to kill the deficit, ending the season at the top of the league and earning promotion. Promoted again, and now playing in the Championship, they were hit by yet another deduction, which really wrecked them and had them fighting for survival, which they achieved. The next season was harder though, and ended in relegation for them, but they were soon back up. And down. And up again. And down.

When we were in the Championship for those three years, Rotherham fans came to Villa Park and I'll always remember their forum raving about us after. The comments were like "I love the New York, but their club shop is bigger than it" and "you can absolutely smell the tradition coming out of there, what a huge club".

The fixture at their ground was one of the wins in the 9 match winning run that got us promoted, Grealish scored a goal Messi would have been proud of.

There is even a video posted by a Rotherham fan sat in the home end creaming himself to our fans and even singing along 

Nice bunch. Also, Bradford were the same when they came to VP. I'd say maybe it's a Yorkshire thing but then you have Leeds so maybe it's not.

[Trollheart]

Yeah, friendly rivalries are great. It's when it gets violent that things turn ugly. In my research for this, I'm coming across some hairy moments when there were all but fistfights on and off the pitch. And people didn't seem to think it that much of a deal.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Solihull Moors
Home city or town: Solihull
Area: Warwickshire
Nickname: The Moors
Home ground: Damson Park
Manager: Andy Whing
Currently playing in: National League
Tier: 5
First opponent in Round One: Maidstone United **++
Highest position achieved: Current
Giant Killing(s) Yeovil Town (2016)
Best FA Cup run: Second round
Rivals: Unknown

Sometimes I start these writeups expecting there to be little to write, and there ends up being a ton, but a team only founded in 2007 surely can't have too much history or interest behind them? I go by the scroll on the right of the Wiki page, and this one is moving rather fast down the screen, so I don't think I'll quite be writing a novel on these guys. Again though, in fairness, there is some history, as once more (moor? Sorry) we have two older clubs being merged: Moor Green, founded 1901 and Solihull Borough, around since 1953.

Another club who had their manager die in service, again of cancer at only 60, and that's about as much as I can tell you about them.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Southend United
Home city or town: Southend
Area: Essex
Nickname: The Shrimpers, The Blues
Home ground: Roots Hall
Manager: Kevin Maher
Currently playing in: National League
Tier: 5
First opponent in Round One: Charlton Athletic
Highest position achieved: EFL League 1
Giant Killing(s) None
Best FA Cup run: Fifth round
Rivals: Colchester United, Leyton Orient

I remember Southend fondly, as a colleague of mine, who lived there, used to moan constantly about how poor they were, but you stick with your home side (if you're English) and there's no way around that. I see they did their bit for the war effort, their stadium being dismantled and the timber used for, well, whatever the War Ministry wanted it for I guess: making more DeHavilland Mosquitoes? Resurfacing the wings on old Gloster Gladiators? Helping to build the Mulberry artificial harbours for D-Day? Whatever, I don't know if Southend had any choice in the matter - probably not - but I'm sure they'd later say they did their duty.

Customs didn't care about that sixty years or so later though, when they came with the hand out, looking for tax that Southend had been unable or unwilling to pay, and holding wind-up orders in the other hand. Players were not paid, and the situation was looking decidedly dodgy for a while, but as they always do, the taxman got paid and all was well, God was in his Heaven and the Queen could have that new ivory backscratcher she'd been eyeing up. Ten years later, they were back in the same position.

Never heard of a club in such dire, and consistent, financial straits: no less than eighteen wind-up orders with a debt at one point of over 17 million, and players constantly having to go to the wife for a loan, as they had not been paid. This, surely, involved extra work on behalf of those who were not married, who then had to find a girl (and, despite the assurances of Showwaddywaddy about there being "Three Steps to Heaven", perhaps finding the second step harder, as who wants to fall in love with, much less marry a cash-strapped footballer from the lower leagues?), marry her and then go to her for a loan, explaining he had not been paid. Again.

As if things weren't bad enough, the club was hit with a 10-point deduction for consistently failing to pay their debts, players went on strike (finally) and at one point there were a total of ten men available for a match! Fans weren't happy, HM Customs weren't happy, players weren't happy and I imagine my old mate wasn't happy either.

[Trollheart]

Team name: Stevenage
Home city or town: Stevenage
Area: Hertfordshire
Nickname: The Boro
Home ground: The Lamex Stadium
Manager: Alex Revell
Currently playing in: EFL League 1
Tier: 3
First opponent in Round One: Guisely
Highest position achieved:
Giant Killing(s) Newcastle (3-1, 2011); Aston Villa (2023)
Best FA Cup run:  Fifth round
Rivals: Unknown

Only founded in 1976, Stevenage arrived to find that the local borough council had rather sneakily sold their ground to a businessman, and to make sure they couldn't use it, a long trench had been dug across the ground. Lends new meaning to the phrase "falling into the offside trap", doesn't it? Ah, there's my old muckers Torquay United again! Kind of missed references to them recently, but they're back.