As a sort of antidote to a depressing week of legal wrangling between the billionaires at the top of English football, I went to Market Harborough.
Rugby dominates the sporting scene in the area, roughly halfway between Leicester and Northampton, two Premiership giants who were facing off earlier in the day.
But the FA Cup was in town and there’s something about the competition that never fails to lift your spirits, even though it’s admittedly not what it used to be.
Greed has changed priorities in football and taken away much of its charm.
Bigger, richer clubs can do without the hassles of FA Cup playoffs that clog up their money-making process, especially those pesky replays that wear down superstar players and leave them susceptible to injury.
FA Cup qualification provided a welcome antidote to Manchester City’s legal dispute
Harborough Town beat 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 quite well themselves, traveling around the world for a parade of invitational friendlies and pre-season tours while entering the ever-expanding range of international competitions.
To cope with these excessive demands, they assemble luxurious teams and send out marginal players who need a game in the cup competitions and still dominate those at lower levels, which is discouraging in another sense, so one could find the best of the FA Cup. these days at a different level.
Harborough Town of the Southern League Premier Central Division sold out the biggest day in their history, with a record crowd of 1,600 people, most of them leaning against the barrier around the pitch, and some releasing canisters of yellow smoke while they hit. Bury in the fourth qualifying round and made history by reaching the FA Cup proper for the first time.
It is a small club that counts former England rugby captain Martin Johnson among its former players, and is growing rapidly, running many teams from a complex of grass and 3G pitches on the outskirts of Market Harborough while the first team continues to break new ground. floor.
The celebrations continued long after the final whistle and the clubhouse will be a lively center again on Monday when they reveal their first-round opponents.
Bury graced the occasion with 600 fans and the narrative of a proud club that emerged from the rubble of successive crumbling owners who left a community without a football club that had been 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 leading examples of the need for independent regulation in football.
The irony is that they reside on Gigg Lane, around 10 miles north of the Etihad Stadium, where Manchester City are currently investing millions of pounds of legal muscle in their war with the Premier League.
City are investing millions of pounds of legal force in their war with the Premier League
City’s rich owners want to free themselves from the terms and conditions of English football
City’s wealthy owners want to free themselves 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 games to the other side of the Atlantic.
Everyone silently longs for the collective broadcasting agreement to be ended. Let’s not forget the six who signed up for the idea of breaking loose in the European Super League.
Everyone who has wants to have more. It was always like this. More control, more money, more success. Less financial responsibility for the foundations upon which the game was built and allowed them to prosper and become 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 power of City’s youth system and their transfer scouting and influencing operation. They were too busy creating new legends like Phil Foden, Erling Haaland and Lord Pannick.
All encouraged by the modernists who tell us that we have never had such a good time because there are so many goals and tactical revolutions despite the fact that many teams simply seem incapable of defending properly.
But at least we have competitions like the FA Cup, which still unite English football from its Victorian beginnings to the present day, from the wealthy elite to the grassroots volunteers.
Five things I learned this week
1 – Saka’s injury will be a concern
Bukayo Saka has played a lot of football in recent years and his injury will be a cause for concern
Bukayo Saka has played a lot of football in recent years and Arsenal will not have missed that a good part of him has been in the England shirt. Of Saka’s last 100 games, 19 have been for his country. For Arsenal during that period, he played 63 times in the Premier League, 13 in European competitions, twice in the FA Cup and twice in the Carabao Cup, and once in the FA Community Shield.
Seeing the 23-year-old trudging through the defeat against Greece on Thursday will have worried Mikel Arteta after Martin Odegaard was injured playing for Norway last month.
2 – Lee Carsley seems to hate talking to the media
England interim manager Lee Carsley doesn’t seem to like talking to the media.
The English coach’s job involves many conversations with the public through the media.
It wasn’t always like this. Sir Alf Ramsey didn’t like that sort of thing and he did well, but if you expect 80,000 to keep paying to see you lose at home to Iceland or Greece then public messages are important. Gareth Southgate was very skilled at it, which is one of the reasons he looked so comfortable in the role for so long and Lee Carsley seems to hate him.
3 – The habit of players of telling the public to make more noise is increasing
Footballers’ irritating habit of gesturing to the crowd to ‘get up’ is on the rise
The irritating habit of footballers gesturing to the crowd to “get up” and make more noise is on the rise.
Jude Bellingham and Noni Madueke were at Wembley last week. Madueke, who was winning his second cap, which seems to me probably too early to dictate the mood of the crowd for anything other than his football.
4 – Musah and Pochettino provide North London connections for US
Yunus Musah scored his first international goal and Mauricio Pochettino won his first game as United States coach.
Musah left Arsenal’s academy for Valencia in 2019, the same year Pochettino was fired from Tottenham.
Yunus Musah scored the opening goal in a 2-0 win against Panama to extend North London connections during Mauricio Pochettino’s first game in charge of the United States.
Musah, born in New York and now at AC Milan, spent seven years in Arsenal’s academy before leaving for Valencia the same year Pochettino was sacked by Tottenham.
5 – Bradford’s Andy Cook enjoys scoring against former clubs
Bradford’s Andy Cook is developing a knack for scoring goals against his former clubs.
Bradford’s Andy Cook tops the League Two scoring charts with seven goals in 11 games and a happy ability to score 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.