Smaller clubs take on bigger fish in FA Cup

With almost all non-league football up and down the country being called off last weekend even more attention I would suggest was being paid to one of the biggest and traditional occasions in football, the FA Cup third round.It is, of course, the time when the big boys cross swords with those lower down the football pyramid with the smaller clubs hoping to create an upset that will be remembered for years to come.I was fortunate enough to be amongst a 60,000-plus crowd at Anfield on Saturday lunchtime for the Liverpool versus Accrington Stanley tie, where almost 5,000 Stanley supporters turned up to support their team, hoping for what would have been, one of the biggest cup upsets of all time.Unfortunately for them, it wasn’t to be as the Premier League pacesetters barely left first gear whilst recording a very comfortable 4-0 victory on the day.However, it’s a day that the team and their supporters will never forget, despite the result, something that the cup is famous for.Having crossed swords with Tamworth a few times whilst being involved at The Walks back in the day, it was with an added interest that I sat down to watch their tie with Tottenham on Sunday, and what a tie it turned out to be with the visitors needing extra time to finally overcome their plucky National League hosts by a 3-0 margin. Indeed had Tamworth taken a huge chance seconds before the end of normal time there may not have been the need for the extra time. For me, the huge shame was the scrapping of cup replays this season which ultimately denied the hosts a trip to the magnificent Tottenham stadium for a replay.I’m sure Tamworth have made a good sum from the game as it is but the extra revenue from a replay in London would have swelled the club’s coffers even more.Much was made of the ticket prices for that game and I felt they were a little on the steep side but I could also understand that the club wanted to wring everything they could from the occasion as those days do not come around that often. On the flip side of the coin, I was very pleasantly surprised to pay just £21 for a seat in Anfield’s main stand on Saturday, and I understand from a friend that seats were cheaper than that in other parts of t,.Premier League clubs are often accused of not caring about their supporters and the cost of match tickets. However, on this occasion, Liverpool most certainly got their pricing correct – as the sold-out ground for the lunchtime kick-off confirmed.It came as no surprise that the recent spell of Arctic-sourced weather put paid to almost all of last weekend’s scheduled football action.As soon as a spell of nights of sub-zero temperatures hits there really is very little chance of getting a game on unless your club is lucky enough to have in its armour under pitch heating or a plastic surface. In my time at The Walks, I became involved in covering the playing surface in the hope that an upcoming game could be played against all of the odds.I must say it was never the easiest of jobs to do and at that time we were reliant on bands of volunteers coming along to help both cover and uncover the pitch for us.I remember one such occasion performing the said task on a very windy and cold Sunday afternoon and completing the task around an hour before the predicted snow arrived.The covers remained in place for over a week as the bad weather continued with preparation for their removal beginning the day before the next game with slightly less cold weather predicted. A dedicated band of people toiled for endless hours to remove snow and ice from the covers, then remove the covers themselves, only for a referee to deem the surface unplayable due to a small area of frozen ground!Lynn announced the call off on Friday evening which stopped any travelling supporters from Oxford before they had the chance to set foot into their vehicles to make the journey North.I noted a few became impatient with the club as other games were being called much earlier in the day but there would have been reasons for this.As the crow flies, Oxford’s trip to Norfolk is one of the shortest they will undertake this season so they probably would have travelled Saturday morning or late Friday afternoon if they proposed to do an overnight stay, hence why there was no need to call off in the morning. I’d suggest had Darlington or Southport been heading this way you would have seen a much earlier call-off.I’m also assuming that a level two or three referee would be needed to carry out any inspection and I know from experience that there aren’t that many locally who can be on-site at the drop of a hat so one would have been contacted and would have got to the ground as quickly as was possible (after finishing work I would suggest).The most important thing would be that both club’s secretaries would have been speaking with each other as soon as conditions were looking unsafe earlier in the week and making all of the arrangements that needed to be in place.In truth, when you are subjected to night after night of moderate frost, and with the well-known scenario of the Linnets main stand casting a huge shadow over the pitch and low sun at this time of year, the game is always likely to be postponed.As I write this column the weather is, I’d say, best described as less cold which will hopefully mean that the pitch will thaw, allowing Marine to make the long journey from Merseyside to West Norfolk for Saturday’s National League North encounter.With the club charging youngsters just a £1 entry (and they deserve great credit for that by the way) a good turnout looks to be on the cards for the first home game of the new calendar year.