The FA Cup sponsored by E.ON
First Round Proper
Saturday 11 November 2006
Winning clubs will receive £10,000
First Round Proper Draw - Click Here

 

David Barber aka “The Barber”, The FA’s historian and superfan, has been to more than 50 FA Cup First Round Proper matches. His 51st and most recent was last season’s 1-1 draw at Priory Lane between Eastbourne Borough of the Conference South and Oxford United, then in Football League Two.

 

41 of those 51 matches have featured League v non-League clashes, the spice that The Cup offers, and he has witnessed these eight “giant-killings” so far:-

 

1972: Walton & Hersham 2 Exeter City 1

1977: Runcorn 1 Southport 0 (replay)

1990: Hayes 1 Cardiff City 0 (replay)

1991: Fulham 0 Hayes 2

1994: Woking 1 Barnet 0 (replay)

2000: Brentford 1 Kingstonian 3

2002: QPR 1 Vauxhall Motors 1 (replay, won by VM on pens)

2003: Hornchurch 2 Darlington 0

 

A few questions for the doyen of The Cup’s First Round…

 

What was the first match?

 

When I was nine years old I was angling to be taken to a football match after seeing a few big ones on TV. The first one turned out to be an FA Cup First Round tie between Crystal Palace and Hitchin Town on a grey November afternoon in 1960.

 

It could hardly have been a better start. Palace were a goal up in ten minutes, won 6-2, and I loved the atmosphere generated by a 20,000 crowd. I seemed to be the only boy in the stand – all the others being old men smoking pipes – and I couldn’t wait to go again.

 

Any highlights in the ‘60s?

 

The day after I broke my arm playing football at school in 1966 I saw QPR beat Southern League Poole Town 3-2 at Loftus Road. The great Rodney Marsh notched a hat-trick but I particularly remember a character called Mark Lazarus dribbling down the right wing with no shorts on. He’d had to remove them at the touchline after tearing them and then a team-mate passed the ball to him…

 

Sutton United had a good side in ’63, the Isthmians reaching the Amateur Cup Final at Wembley, and I thought they had a good chance of beating Fourth Division Aldershot. But it all went wrong from the kick-off, a Sutton defender scoring an own goal in the first minute, and it finished 0-4. I should’ve gone to Palace’s First Round tie that day – they rattled in eight!

 

How long did you have to wait for a First Round “giant-killing”?

 

It happened in ’72, 12 years after that first match. Catching the train at Waterloo for Walton-on-Thames that day I found myself in the same carriage as one of our FA Council Members and I told him on the journey that I felt a Cup upset was on the cards.

 

I stood on the covered side as Isthmian League Walton & Hersham led Fourth Division Exeter City 2-1 with a few minutes to go. It was agony to watch as the Grecians forced corner after corner, but the amateurs held on. I was elated afterwards, having seen history made at last.

 

Any more special matches after that?

 

Tooting & Mitcham hadn’t done anything in The Cup since holding eventual winners Nottingham Forest to a 2-2 draw in the Third Round in 1959. Then they were paired with Crystal Palace in the First Round in ’74 and I left home at the crack of dawn one chilly Sunday morning to join the queue for tickets at Sandy Lane. I was sixth in line on a day they sold nearly 10,000 and I remember one chap keeping us amused with his Frank Spencer impressions.

 

The match was played on a Wednesday afternoon without lights and Tooting shocked us all by scoring a freakish goal in the first minute. Then a Palace penalty was saved and it was looking desperate until the visitors popped in a couple to squeeze through 2-1.

 

The most recent “giant-killing” was Hornchurch’s 2-0 win against Darlington at the former’s Bridge Avenue ground three years ago. The Quakers finished 18th in the League’s bottom division that season and I sensed some fear on their part even during the pre-match kickabout. The Urchins knocked them out and it wasn’t that hard.

 

Which tie have you chosen to watch at the weekend?

 

I quite fancy Gillingham v Bromley, the Ryman Premier side having drawn a League club in The Cup for the first time for 30 years. Otherwise I could make it a Dorset double-header – AFC Bournemouth v Boston United on Saturday and Weymouth v Bury on Sunday.