Obviously everyone knows how the final ended, Ray Simpson and Kevan Smith guffawing as Darlo scored the 120th minute winner. Here you can relive almost the whole competition.
Round 2 Review. (Oddly enough featuring footage of Darlington beating Middlesbrough in the 1985 FA Cup)
It's easy to become disillusioned with the FA Cup. After the third round, only one non-league club still survives, and that club is Crawley Town, an obnoxious team that spent more this past off season than every League 2 team combined. There's no more talk of Vauxhall Motors or Swindon Supermarine, instead all the hype goes to the big glamourous clubs like Stevenage or Burton Albion.
No, if you want the real heart warming stories, and proper football at proper clubs, then it's time to turn your attention to the FA Trophy, a competition for only Non-League clubs. The 2nd round happened this weekend and there were plenty of upsets, with 4 Conference (Blue Square Premier, and in a rare example of me going along with sponsorship, for the sake of clarity, I'll call it the BSP) teams being knocked out by teams from further down the non-league pyramid.
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Round 3 Preview. Profiling Chasetown
Well, the FA Cup 4th round didn't work out too well, all the League Two clubs are gone, there's a few Premiership vs league one ties, with Leyton Orient vs Arsenal as the most interesting, but all the attention is going to go to the thoroughly odious match-up of Crawley at Man Utd. So it's once again time to turn to the FA Trophy for a breath of fresh air.
It's down to the last 16, you can see the ties as well as get a wealth of information about the teams and results in previous rounds here. There's only 5 Conference clubs left, and only 2 of those are in the top half of the table, one of those teams is Luton Town who played against Gloucester City of the Conference North tonight. Going by internet reports, Gloucester had the better of the game, but lost 1-0 to an 84th minute goal after their offside trap broke down. So Luton are through to the quarter finals and are definitely the favourites at this stage. 3 of the 4 other Conference clubs are at home, and the best possibility for an upset is probably the one team that's away, Darlington with a very tricky tie against AFC Telford.
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Round 3 Review
So, how did the FA Trophy 3rd round go? Well, first of all, Darlington avoided the bananaskin, and got some very symmetrical revenge for 1985 with a 3-0 win over Telford. Chasetown, who I profiled yesterday came through with a 3-1 away win at Eastleigh, reaching the quarter finals for the first time in their history.
Excellent stuff, as was the result at Woking, where Salisbury City, who are at the same level of the non-league pyramid as Chasetown, won 2-0. Gateshead did defeat Dartford, but the other two Conference clubs Mansfield Town and Eastbourne Borough were both held to draws at home against Alfreton Town and Guiseley respectively. Blyth Spartans and Drolysden drew 2-2 in the other game.
Add in Wolves beating man United and Arsenal throwing away a 4 goal lead against Newcastle, and it was a very entertaining day in England.
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Quarter Finals (featuring hot stag on stag action)
In my second round review I predicted that Darlington would win their tricky third round tie at Telford, only to lose to a much smaller team in the quarter finals. Well, they did the first bit of that, with a 3-0 win at Telford, and now everything's lined up perfectly for the loss to the small team, with a home game against Salisbury City, currently two levels further down the non-league pyramid than Darlo. Hopefully history won't fully repeat itself as the only other time Darlington played in the FA Trophy, they lost at the quarter final stage to Leek Town, back in 1990, check out the link for all the results of that years competition, and see how teams such as Chalfont St Peter, Erith & Belvedere and Shepshed Charterhouse did.
All 4 ties feature Conference teams taking on teams from further down the pyramid, 3rd round heroes Chasetown have a home match against Mansfield Town, which going by logos is a stag v stag contest.
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Semi Finals
The FA Trophy semi-finals happen over the next two weekends, and all the upsets are over as it's 4 Conference teams playing off for the place at Wembley for the final.
Chasetown took Mansfield Town to a replay before a 3-1 defeat saw them bow out, and Mansfield now face Luton Town in the first semi final, with the first leg this Friday at Mansfield. Luton are rightly the favourites to win the trophy, as they currently sit 3rd in the Conference and seem fairly certain of a promotion playoff place for the second straight year, whereas Mansfield are currently 13th. In their one meeting so far this season, back in September Luton won 2-0.
The other semi final is a North Eastern Derby with Gateshead, winners over their local rivals Blyth Spartans playing against everyone's heroes Darlington, the first leg at Darlo on Saturday. The teams have played twice this year, Darlington winning 2-0 at home in August, and then just this Tuesday they drew 2-2 in Gateshead, Darlington letting in an injury time goal, throwing away points in that fashion for the 5th time this year.
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The Final preview. Featuring terrible cup final songs
With the non league season now over bar the playoffs, there's just time for the showcase fixture of the FA Trophy final, a chance for two tiny non-league teams to give their fans the game of a lifetime and a trip to Wembley.
That romantic narrative is spoiled somewhat by the fact that the two teams playing are traditional football league teams only recently entering the non-league abyss, both of whom have played in Wembley finals previously (and that was old Wembley, which is clearly a much bigger deal). Mansfield Town won the 1987 Freight Rover trophy, the first Wembley final to go to penalties, and their opponents have two losing playoff final appearances to their name. That name gives the tie all the romance and interest I need though, that's right, it's everyone's favourite non-league team Darlington.
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The full history and results can be found here and there's really only way to finish this whole thing off. I'm proud to say I can now just about watch this without welling up. 'Chris Senior, you are a hero"
The Glorious Finale
