A drive to Plymouth shouldn’t be a brief one by any means for Liverpool supporters, however Steven Scragg made the journey and here’s what he manufactured from the Reds’ FA Cup exit.
Simply while you’re basking within the glow of wider opinion that Liverpool are successfully one of the best crew on the face of the planet, it’s life-affirming to expertise a day that confirms soccer will all the time discover a manner of biting your hand, do you have to dare to take the sport as a right.
Throughout the Dalglish, Souness, Evans, Houllier and Benitez eras, I used to journey all over the place watching the Reds, however then the position of fatherhood dawned and life sort of escalated quickly.
When the appearance of the £30 away ticket kicked in simply as I’d taken my eye off the credit ball, it meant that away Premier League video games additionally grew to become a factor of the previous for me. However I did handle to stay lucid sufficient to maintain my away FA Cup loyalty up, that means that throughout the final decade and a half I’ve embraced the event’s awaydays for all their price.
Having missed the 2017 journey to Plymouth because of sick well being, I used to be all the time going to leap at this one, if solely to tick off floor quantity 70 out of the present 92 groups of the Premier League and Soccer League, all within the title of stadium geekery.
The magic has modified
FA Cup finals are nice issues to be an energetic a part of as a supporter, extra so while you win them clearly, and there’s something defiantly wondrous about rocking up at Goodison or Outdated Trafford and claiming 15 p.c of the tickets in what seems like a name to arms.
However one of the best a part of the competitors is these journeys to stadiums that aren’t a part of the customarily repetitive cycle of ones you go to on league weekends.
Throughout my Liverpool watching years, alongside the extra acquainted outposts, I’ve been fortunate sufficient to have a ticket for video games at locations just like the Goldstone Floor, Bootham Crescent, Oakwell, the Victoria Floor, Brunton Park, the Vetch Fiel and Gresty Highway.
Plus Twerton Park, Burnden Park, Ashton Gate, Homosexual Meadow and the New Meadow, Vale Park, Huish Park, Deepdale, Discipline Mill, Kingsmeadow, St James Park (Exeter Metropolis model), and now Dwelling Park, together with one or two fully forgettable Meccano new builds.
Misadventure of end result and efficiency apart. Dwelling Park makes it 70/92 league grounds and counting. pic.twitter.com/tWCflp6WHh
— Steven Scragg (@Scraggy_74) February 10, 2025
A few of these stadiums at the moment are lengthy gone, which makes their ticked field much more worthwhile to have marked off.
However, on the identical time, the modern method to the FA Cup by trendy teaching considering, an method that arguably now stretches throughout half of my lifetime, takes one thing away from the broader aura of the competitors.
Not precisely a groundbreaking opinion, I admit, however everyone knows that the ‘Magic of the FA Cup‘ is now an exceptionally uncommon commodity and has been for many years.
To youthful generations which were introduced up on a weight loss program of the Premier League and Champions League being all-consuming megaliths, and the remainder of soccer being a trivial distraction by and huge, it might come as a shock to listen to that the FA Cup used to impress sleepless nights and chilly sweats.
It was a contest with an outlined sense of peril. The magic was very actual.
Sure, there was all the time the tried and examined line of “properly, at the least we will focus on the league now,” from the place we’d truly go on to fulfil the prophesy of throwing the First Division trophy from participant to participant round Anfield in Might.
However an FA Cup exit nonetheless stung, and all through the primary half of the Nineteen Eighties, it was fairly the irritation that we couldn’t fairly scratch. At the very least not till 1986.
Now the sentiment may be very totally different. Three days previous to the journey to Devon, Liverpool had already obtained themselves a visit to Wembley for the League Cup last.
Pragmatic Reds
With the rearranged Merseyside Derby looming on Wednesday, it was no shock to undertake the five-hour drive to Plymouth solely to be greeted by information of a lineup that regarded just like the again finish of a Ford Cortina welded onto the entrance finish of a TR7.
What the fourth spherical of the FA Cup used to signify was the second precarious hurdle of the competitors, one which the profitable clearing of would give rise to the hope of a sort dwelling draw being plucked out of the velvet bag for the fifth spherical by some historical relic of a stuffed shirt.
From there, in case you squinted nearly sufficient, you might vaguely make out the silhouette of Wembley’s twin towers, a visage that may lend to daydreaming a few sunny Saturday in Might; and the curve of that shadow from the roof of the Wembley stands; and the lengthy stroll from the tunnel finish for the gamers as they waved to relations within the crowd.
Nonetheless, the jumpers for goalposts period has lengthy gone and the fourth spherical of the FA Cup now represents a chance price making.
Essential league and European video games await us, as does a visit to Anfield South to contest the ultimate of English soccer’s different home cup competitors.
Pragmatism means 10 modifications are made to the beginning line-up, and a look on the checklist of substitutes has you scratching your head making an attempt to work out who one or two of the names are.
On Sunday, we have been dealt the sucker punch that lands every so often while you go up in opposition to decided opponents which might be fairly rightly grabbing their 90 minutes of nationwide fame in opposition to a much bigger crew with an incohesive assortment of acquainted faces and hopeful children, which might be struggling to kind a footballing chemistry collectively.
Plymouth deserved their win, whereas Liverpool bought their simply deserts.
The excitable dwelling help will bear in mind it eternally and a day, and so they need to. They’ll additionally probably see their crew lose within the league on the exact same pitch to Millwall whereas we’re doing battle within the last-ever Merseyside Derby to happen at Goodison.
It’s the way in which of the footballing world.
As I meandered again to my automotive after the sport it wasn’t a journey I made with the burden of defeat resting on my shoulders, though even that in itself was loosely unsettling provided that as a child an FA Cup exit damage for weeks, it was extra a query of constructing positive I bought some petrol for the lengthy journey dwelling earlier than I bought to the M5.
Therefore, via mine, and I’m positive the eyes of many people who lived the glory days of yore, an FA Cup tie now could be all about ticking one other floor from the checklist and muted disappointment after we’re drawn to play at dwelling, but having fun with the occasion ought to we discover ourselves working spherical Wembley with the cup.
Identical once more subsequent yr.
