This article is taken from the February 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.
The final whistle was seconds away at Manor Park in 2006 when a former England defender misjudged his clearance and the ball clipped his arm. The referee pointed to the spot and Gez Murphy scored the penalty that gave non-league Nuneaton a 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough, who were 100 places above them in football’s pyramid. A draw never tasted so much like victory.
Gareth Southgate, whose lapse gave Nuneaton their chance of a replay, which they lost 5-2, went on to reach that season’s FA Cup semi-final and UEFA Cup final before becoming a coach and eventually a knight. Murphy went back to his day job as a council worker. It was, as the BBC reported, a “classic FA Cup encounter played on a terrible pitch in dreary conditions with 6,000 home fans determined to make themselves heard”.
When they speak of the “romance of the Cup”, they mean hard-earned draws that bring minnows a second chance just as much as any shock win. That same afternoon in 2006, another non-league side frustrated a big name, this time away from home. Stoke City, of the Championship, were unable to score at the Britannia Stadium against a dogged Tamworth. “This is the biggest result in the club’s history,” the non-league Staffordshire club’s manager said.
That could have been topped on 12 January this year when Tamworth walked off after 90 minutes against Spurs on level terms. The problem is, it wasn’t the final whistle. Under new FA rules this season, to protect those poor over-stretched bigger clubs with their huge squads and large budgets from having to play more than necessary, replays were abolished.
Instead of basking in their resistance and enjoying a trip to North London, where their share of gate receipts and TV revenue would be worth an estimated £875,000, an exhausted Tamworth had to play half an hour of extra time, during which Spurs’ greater fitness helped them to win 3-0. The Lambs, as Tamworth are known, were sent to the slaughter. Rather than seeing how the other half live, their next engagement was Boldmere St Michael’s in the Birmingham Senior Cup.
Replays after a drawn match had been part of the FA Cup from the beginning. Well, almost. When Hitchin drew with Crystal Palace in the first round in 1871, the FA decided both clubs should go through. It was not the only odd ruling from the governing body as it tried to work out its new competition. Queen’s Park, from Glasgow, and Donington School, in Lincolnshire, were unable to agree who should host their match, so both were permitted to progress.
In the second round, they drew each other again, at which point Donington withdrew from the contest. Then, because of an uneven number of sides remaining, Queen’s Park were drawn out of the hat to be given a bye, and so the Scottish club reached the semi-final without playing. They drew 0-0 with the Wanderers at the Oval but, unable to afford to travel back south to try again, as the FA required, they surrendered the tie and so were knocked out of the Cup without conceding a goal.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Having decided both teams would go through after a draw in the first round, the FA changed its policy for the second, when Barnes drew 1-1 with Hampstead Heathens and lost a replay 1-0. The FA decided after this that a replay would be the best way to settle a shared result. Inevitably, perhaps, the second season of the Cup contained no draws at all.
Sheffield and Shropshire Wanderers had two goalless draws in the first round in 1873, after which Sheffield progressed on a coin toss, but in the next round Clapham Rovers and Cambridge University played out two draws and then a third match, which the Londoners won 4-1. From then, multiple replays until someone won in 90 minutes were the rule. The record was five replays to separate Alvechurch and Oxford City in the fourth qualifying round in 1971.
In 1899, Woolwich Arsenal and New Brompton needed four replays to find a winner. Eighty years later, Arsenal had to play five times in 17 days to beat Sheffield Wednesday, of the third division. It became a nine-hour, 16-goal mini-series. Nick Hornby, the Gunners fan, spoke of the replays as “a beautiful and strange tradition”, whilst the Sheffield-born Michael Palin said the renewal of hope that they might beat a bigger side brought “a golden ring of light” to the winter of discontent.
The potential for endless replays was abandoned in 1991, save in the qualifying rounds. Sides would now get one reprise and then a penalty shoot-out. Rotherham United, who beat Scunthorpe United 7-6 on penalties, were the first to benefit. Minnows could still hold to earn a second chance.
They still sing at York City about their 1-1 draw with Liverpool in 1985 that earned a trip to Anfield (they gloss over the 7-0 thrashing that followed). Twenty-five years on, Shrewsbury Town also held Liverpool, recovering from 2-0 down to draw at home with the Premier League leaders. In 1999, Exeter drew 0-0 against Everton, ranked 74 places higher, thanks to the heroics of their reserve goalkeeper, a part-time electrician. Non-league Lincoln City beat Ipswich Town in a replay in 2017; Cray Valley, of the Isthmian League southeast division, drew 1-1 with Charlton Athletic in 2023.
The list went on. So many tales of resistance by the little guys. Now no more. Money has spoken. Romance is dead.
