FA Cup 1st Round - Bristol Rovers 2 Southampton 3

R.I.P.

At the start of the season, if someone had asked me to rank the competitions in order of relevance for Saints, I'd have said League, Johnstone Paints Trophy, FA Cup, Carling Cup. Ranking the JPT above the FA Cup is sacrilege of the highest order but lets face it, we have as much chance of winning the FA Cup as Pompey have of winning the 'Best Run Football Club' award.

I love the FA Cup – it's fantastic because we won it very soon after I started taking an interest in football but also because of the upsets, the fact it's an open draw with no seeding and all that stuff, the fact that it's a one off game, the fact that a lower league team can still get to the final etc etc. We got to the final ourselves in 2003, helped by favourable home draws in every round and all the big boys knocking eachother out. Compare and contrast with the Champions League where Liverpool this year, for example, have been abysmal and have only won one match out of 4 but still have a decent chance of qualifying for the next round. When is there ever a semi-finalist you don't expect… can't have the big boys getting knocked out as in the words of Abba, it's all about Money, Money Money in a rich mans' world. The FA Cup – one bad performance and out you go…. It's better and it's how it should be.

The draw for the first round this year could have been a bit kinder as we got Bristol Rovers away. Since they inflicted our last defeat however, they're form has been abysmal so I'm not expecting a cup exit tonight. Saints have been deprived of the services of Neal Trotman who has been prevented from being cup tied by Preston and we also cannot call on Jacob Mellis for the same reason as Chelsea don't want him cup tied which is odd. Mellis won't play for Chelsea in the FA Cup this season as long as he has a hole in his ass but it suggests to me that he'll be on loan at a Championship club when January and the 3rd Round comes rolling round. As it stands, I won't miss him.

To the game and Pards has decided to go with the 4-4-2 formation which has finished the recent games we've had and been successful. This is a move that will obviously find favour with all the armchair managers who all know what's best. Michail Antonio (now ours until January) and David Connolly get starts with Papa Waigo and Paul Wotton dropping to the bench. The unavailable Trotters has been replaced by Wayne Thomas as we have to keep our 'big ugly bastard' quota up.

I've got my usual Friday night match farce to look forward in order to keep in touch with the match. This involves text messages, internet text commentary, chucking money in an internet machine at Dublin airport and not finding out about the second half at all until the plane (hopefully) lands back in Southampton. I've got a pocket full of euros and I'm throwing them in the machine, logging onto Saints 'Player' and listening in to the live commentary…. and it sounds dull. Bristol Rovers are doing all the majority of the attacking and the commentators in true Radio Solent style, all go 'oooooooooh and Lallana heads over the bar'. Yep… wasn't Lallana at all but Dean Hammond.

Anyway, half time approaches and I hear 'Will the one remaining passenger for flight BE389 to Southampton, please come to the gate'. Oh dear… off I go. The second half kicks off as the reception dies and I'm alone with my thoughts on a 120 seater plane with about 40 people on it. For the hell of it really, I try to tune in the radio on my MP3 player to see if it can pick anything up… surprisingly it can but only Radio 2 who must have a massive audience, 24,000 feet up over the Irish Sea. Ten minutes later, the Captain speaks, saying we are just passing over Bristol…. I wonder…. A quick re-tune of the radio and …. Sod all.

Half an hour later. Jesus Christ we're winning 3-0 courtesy of Connolly twice and Antonio. I'm immediately thinking of the fact that Pards seems to have the golden touch regarding his selections though I'm a bit concerned to read that Gobern has replaced Harding at left back. Gobern is Bambi and a passable midfielder but I guess that if you can't throw a player in when you're 3-0 up with 20 to go then when can you. Gobern out of position, cross, goal, 3-1… Hmmmm, no worries. 91 minutes, Gobern tangles with a forward, penalty, 3-2.

Final whistle…. Phew!!!
Whatever way you look at it, it's a good win and we're through to the next round and that's all that matters. Due to the fact that I've been a bit slow in getting this blog entry together, we all know that we've been drawn away to Northampton in the 2nd Round so whilst a home tie would have been preferable, we should be able to make it to Round 3 and have a chance to have a crack at one of the big boys, or Pompey if they're still in existence by then. Northampton had Stuart Gray in charge when we played them in the Carling Cup in August – needless to say, he isn't there now as he kept up his average management appointment length of 4 matches.

The other positive from this match is of course, the form of David Connolly who has now played approximately 180 minutes for Saints and scored 4 goals. Michail Antonio is currently looking the like the player that Nathan Dyer might have been for us if he'd had a brain and it'll be interesting to see how this one plays out if he stars from now until the January transfer window. At present, he seems surplus to requirements at Reading but maybe they'll want him back to fly down the wing and then stop and wait ten minutes to allow Rasiak to get in the box.

We have another cup game coming up on Wednesday night with Charlton the visitors in the Johnstone Paints Trophy. This is the same Charlton who've just been knocked out the FA Cup by Northwich Victoria from the Midlands Ansells Bitter Sunday League Division 8. The magic of the FA Cup…. Love it