A Salute to the Tykes: Barnsley out of FA Cup

By: Ian Rose | April 6th, 2008

For many of us, the best thing about knockout tournaments is the so-called Cinderella team. Every big tournament has them, the small team, lacking any real superstars and with a name no one knows, going deep in a contest usually reserved for the big boys and their billionaire owners. Usually, the Cinderella phenomenon is limited to the early rounds. A team comes out of nowhere, gets a surprising win, then disappears the next round back into obscurity. This year in the FA Cup was different, and the team that made it different was Barnsley Football Club. They went out today to Cardiff, 1-0, ending their miracle run, but they deserve one last salute for almost single-handedly making the Cup interesting again.

The FA Cup was once the ultimate source of underdog legends. There was West Ham in 1980, Sunderland in 1973, and Hereford in 1972. But in recent years, the old excitement of the tournament has given way to predictability, with the Big Four trading the Cup amongst themselves. The last team outside of those four to left it was Everton in 1995, and before that Tottenham in 1991. While not exactly financial giants like the Big Four, Toffees and Spurs are still very big teams. In many people’s eyes, the FA Cup reached a low point with last year’s final, a 1-0 chess match between Chelsea and Manchester United widely considered to be one of the worst finals in the long history of the Cup.

Then along came the 2007-08 FA Cup, the 127th edition of the tournament. Barnsley entered in the third round proper, along with the rest of the Championship and Premier League. The story of that round wasn’t from Barnsley, who beat fellow Championship side Blackpool, but from little Havant and Waterlooville. But they’re another story altogether. In the fourth round, Barnsley once again got a decent draw, picking and beating League One side Southend United.

Then things got interesting. With only 16 teams left from the 731 that entered the competition (mostly small non-league teams in the preliminary rounds), Barnsley got one of the hardest possible draws, Liverpool at Anfield. In one of the great upsets of modern English football, and with admittedly a bit of luck, they beat Liverpool 2-1 in front of over 42,000 shocked fans. Suddenly, people knew who Brian Howard was. Their reward in the quarterfinals? Chelsea. Amazingly, they beat their second Big Four team, in successive rounds, toppling the holders Chelsea 1-0.

At this point, Cardiff fans will stand up say “Wait just a second. We’re in the Championship, too, you know. We’re not exactly giants.” Well, being football fans, they might have slightly more colorful choices of words, but that’s the gist. And they’d be right. Cardiff deserve a lot of praise as well for getting this far, and if they manage to beat final opponents Portsmouth on May 17th, they will be the ones remembered in the history books as the first team outside of the top flight to win the trophy in 28 years. But what they didn’t do is keep the Big Four out of the final. Barnsley gets credit for that, and that, more than anything else, is what has breathed life into the tournament for so many neutral fans this season.