Favourite / Memorable cup replays
Given the existential debate regarding cup replays, what are your favourite / most cherished memories of past replays.
Selhurst Park in February 2001 is likely to top any poll so I’d suggest Blundell Park the previous month.
Having been a regular on the OWWSA coach that season, two friends and I failed to book our seats and discovered it was full. A kind lady in the club office drove us up to Handy Cross so we could catch the WWISC coach, which had been held up by Jonny P. The journey was spent gazing upon an increasingly frozen landscape as game after game was postponed that evening. Somehow ours survived and a quick jog to the chippy was followed by an historic evening. Martyn Lee was Iniesta-esque as we raced into a two-goal lead. They pulled one back just before half-time but Mark Rogers headed home from a corner in the second half before running straight over to me for a sweaty hug and never-to-be-forgotten celebrations. We’d made it to the fourth round of the FA Cup for the first time ever. We were all as giddy as goats on the journey home, which seemed to fly by! Think I climbed into bed about 3am before finally dropping off to sleep, not knowing that it was all going to get so much better!
Comments
Bedford, in the late 60s I think, went to 3 replays.
That Grimsby game might just be the coldest I've ever been at a game. Worth it though.
But yeah, nothing will ever top Selhurst Park.
Boston at AP in 1990. Great atmosphere under the lights. Packed terrace. Won 4-0 to set up the Peterborough tie with the snow and a certain sheepskin coat.
As long as we are not limited to FA cup - Leek Town away mid eighties in the FA trophy. Played on what I remember to be a ploughed field and finished 5-5 great entertainment. Was at Uni in Birmingham at the time - two further replays followed both at Worcester and I remember the clutch in my car being problematic on the way back to Brum from the second Worcester replay (which we won) with fellow car occupants pushing the car up the inclines and getting back in on the flatter bits. Those were the days!
Agree that Selhurst Park would have to me top of my list. Quite the most extraordinary game of football I've ever witnessed.
Other than that. West Brom sticks out. 4500 at the Hawthorns on a Tuesday night. I believe West Brom got their biggest crowd of the season (at that point). I remember getting on a double decker bus from the old bus station for a fiver that chugged it's way up the M40. The whole motorway just seemed a mass of Wycombe fans with beeping horns and scarves flying out of windows.
Grimsby I didn't go to, but have vivid memories of listening on the radio. Was absolutely ecstatic on reaching the 4th round for the 1st time ever. Everything in that cup run was remarkable though! From Barry Silkman making an appearance for Harrow (having been a veteran when playing for Wycombe some 13/14 years earlier!), to the Millwall matches and then the later rounds.
West Brom is a good shout.
Middlesborough away as well
Bournemouth away in the previous round was pretty special, knowing we had just made club history by making the 3rd round for the first time.
Do you remember Trowbridge giving us all the trouble in the world to squeeze by?
Needed a Nicky Evans winner in extra time if memory serves
I was on that bus!!!
Loving these memories. Replays that are played on neutral venues are even more special.
Boston in 1990 was a special night, we played some exceptional football.
Taking 4,500 to the Hawthorns just before Christmas. First time I ate meat too (behave!)
Would love to have seen that Leek pitch with my own eyes. Like an FA Trophy Neil Armstrong.
Speaking of neutral venues, does anyone remember when Adams Park was used for an FA Trophy semi final replay? Enfield V Woking. I worked in the industrial estate at the time and popped in to watch the end of the game (did it go to extra time?) Anyway, it was quite special to watch such an emotional and highly charged occasion as a neutral. Woking won it, sparking a mass pitch invasion and jubilant scenes. It was possibly their first Wembley final. I certainly remember being hugged by some very tearful Woking fans.
I was also on that coach! Mark Rogers' wife was on it wasn't she? Was lovely that he scored a goal that night
Selhurst was so remarkable that you forget incidents which would be the main talking point in a normal game.
How long did we have ten men for? How immense was Taylor's penalty save at the end? Who thought that leaving AP at four would get us to Selhurst in time for kick off? I wouldn't change a thing!
Another vote for The Wimbledon game at Selhurst Park…never been in an atmosphere like that before or since, and nothing has ever, ever, topped the drama of that game. Our support that night was nothing short of sensational.
My overriding feeling from that night at Selhurst was that we were cheering the team through a glorious defeat. The fact that we somehow manage to overcome all sorts of adversity and win the match is frankly unbelievable, even 20 years on. Looking at the Wimbledon team we were facing that night, it was a very strong side. We were patched up anyway and I think lost 2 or 3 players to injury quite early in proceedings (Baird's career was effectively ended by the tackle from Williams). When Simpson was sent off early on the 2nd half, victory seemed implausible. We somehow hung on until extra time, but when they scored in the 1st minute, it felt like the floodgates would open, but still we hung on and scored in the 120th minute with what must've been virtually our only meaningful attack since the 1st half. And then the penalties! We were behind in the shoot out only for them to miss the decisive kick. The surge of hope that gave made the rest of the shootout pure agony to endure.
The elation of the victory, I'm not sure has ever been matched for me (possibly Altrincham in the Trophy semi in 91). Certainly the celebrations seemed much more important that attempting to get the final train home. Very decent of Chiltern Trains to hold back the final train for several hundred completely exhausted Chairboys and girls!
West Brom was my first ever away game. Still had an open terrace for the away end
She was. It was such a fabulous evening.
I went to three of the 4 ties with Leek, but couldn't make the 5-5 game.
I was doing a paper round at the time in Downley, spent the early hours ringing the Wanderers answer phone to find out the result, but to no avail.
Eventually Got through via Martins newsagents at about 05.00 am to hear John Goldsworthy's tobacco riddled dulcet tones announce Leek Town 5, ( I then gasped in horror) Wycombe Wanderers 5 !!
The two neutral replays at Worcester will long live on in everyone's memory that was there.
How less than 700 at each game, created such an intense atmosphere that saw sendings off, Wycombe fans Scrapping with the Leek keeper on the pitch, Roy Fairchild scrapping with Leek fans off the pitch. Mark West getting the monkey chants from the Leek fans, but Neal Stanley our mixed race player, not being subjected to the same racial abuse.
Leek having a superb player nicknamed Twangy who terrorised us every time he got the ball.
Memories of when both teams were doing there upmost to progress in an FA competition, seems that is a bit to much to ask these days.
Selhurst Park second to none, got home about half 2 in the morning thanks to our driver making some strange direction decisions on the way home ! Didn't care though.
Also went to 2 of those Leek games
Not a replay but 2nd best away game ever was Leicester.... what a season that was !
West Brom.