The Magic of the FA Cup

A GUEST BLOG BY JONP

Oh the magic of the FA Cup. For those of you who only look at the top flight, it's been interesting us in the lower leagues for a month of so now. And on Sunday you'd best get interested, as your teams will be in the draw for the third round.

When I was younger – I'm only 25 now, so I'd like to maintain some thought that I'm young if that's ok – the FA Cup was something really magical. It was amazing. If the Gills battled through to the third round, all you wanted was a top flight team. You didn't even care where.

Sadly, being a Gillingham fan, we rarely got to the third round and even when we did we drew teams that were in what is now the Championship. The best one I can remember was in 1995, when we drew Sheffield Wednesday at Priestfield. Lost 2-1, Chris Waddle destroyed us – scoring one and making the other – as they went 2-0 up, but then Kevin Pressman got sent off for hauling down Chris Pike and only a brilliant performance from sub keeper Lance Key kept the Premiership side in the tie. Two days later, we went into administration – but no-one who was there that afternoon even contemplated that we'd have made more money if we'd played at Hillsborough instead – we nearly caused an upset – that was enough.



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