The Carling Cup had already provided excitement and a noteworthy scoreline when Aston Villa overcame Wycombe Wanderers 8-3 at the Causeway Stadium.

But City's penalty shootout defeat against Rovers at The Earth Stadium came mainly as a result of substitute goalkeeper Jan Budtz's heroics.

The teams were locked at 1-1 after extra time, a fantastic scoreline for the League One underdogs, when the tie went to penalties.

Budtz, substituting for the injured Andy Warrington in Rovers goal, then emerged as the home side's hero.

He saved two of the three penalties he faced and saw Darius Vassell strike the bar with the other. So City, after such an impressive start in the Premiership, went out of the Carling Cup after failing to score with any of their spot-kicks.

That in itself is a rarity. Terry Venables' Barcelona famously missed all their penalties in the shootout at the end of the 1986 European Cup Final.

With the match in Spain (Seville) and the opposition unfancied Steaua Bucharest from Romania, Barca had been clear favourites to lift the trophy. But they obviously hadn't been practising their penalties, because Steaua won the shootout 2-0.

Closer to home, in The FA Cup, Liverpool beat Birmingham City 2-0 on penalties in the Third Round in 1995 with Brum missing all four of their kicks.

Non-League Tunbridge Wells and Littlehampton Town showed us all how to do it in an FA Cup Preliminary Round tie last month. After a 2-2 draw their shootout finished 16-15 in Wells' favour!