5 FA Cup Semi-Finals You May Remember

Along with details of Brian Kilcline's favourite food (steak and chips of course!) and Greavesie's thoughts on the shortcomings of foreign players (most related to a suspicious dislike of the cold), any child sufficiently well-briefed on his Shoot! magazines knew from an early age that No-one Remembers Semi-Finals.

Au contraire, purveyors of footballing truths. In advance of this weekend's admittedly-very-probably-forgettable FA Cup semi-finals, here are some that remain in the memory....

1999 Manchester United 0-0 Arsenal; Replay: Manchester United 2-1 Arsenal
One of those exceptions that proves the rule, in that most people forget that United's famous victory at Villa Park was a replay, the sides having drawn 0-0 at the same venue three days previously.

As a crucial staging post in United's treble-winning journey, and coming against their greatest rivals, it's unsurprising that this tumultuous evening casts a longer shadow than United's eventual victory over Newcastle in the final. A game that definitively had it all: Beckham's cracking opener, Bergkamp's deflected response, Keane's sending-off, Schmeichel's injury-time penalty save, and then, from Ryan Giggs, the goal that launched a thousand chest-waxes.

1997 Middlesbrough 3-3 Chesterfield; Replay: Middlesbrough 3-0 Chesterfield
By some distance the highlight of Chesterfield F.C.'s 140 year history, the Spireites were a controversially disallowed goal away from making the final, which would have made them the first third tier club to have reached the May showpiece.

23,000 Chesterfield fans saw their team race into a two goal lead over their Premiership opponents, who had Vladimir Kinder sent off. Fabrizio Ravanelli pulled one back for Boro, before Chesterfield's Jonathan Howard smashed a shot off the crossbar which bounced, seemingly, over the line. David Elleray did not concur, and, soon afterwards, Craig Hignett brought Middlesbrough level.

Gianluca Festa gave Boro the lead in extra-time, before Spireite stalwart Jamie Hewitt, in his eleventh season with the club, earned the Division 2 side a replay.

1991 Tottenham Hotspur 3-1 Arsenal
The 1990-91 semi-final provided the apex of Paul Gascoigne's early career. Indeed, despite his fleeting Euro 96 renaissance, some might argue that the exocet free-kick which soared past David Seaman in the fifth minute of this match was his finest moment.

Gazza hadn't actually started a game for 11 weeks prior to the semi-final against Arsenal, who were coasting to the title that season. His goal capped a year, post-Italia 90, which had seen his celebrity rise exponentially, in a manner now familiar in football, but which until then was more usually seen in the world of pop music.

A few short weeks later, in the FA Cup final, he would lunge into the vicious tackle on Gary Charles of Nottingham Forest that would ruin his knee ligaments and strike him down in the prime of his talent. Gary Lineker scored two further goals to send Spurs into the final, but it was the mercurial Geordie's contribution that is remembered.

1990 Crystal Palace 4-3 Liverpool
Liverpool at their height (and just before their fall), favourites for another double, against a side that they had defeated 9-0 at Anfield during the league campaign. It is easy to forget just what a sense of invincibility that Liverpool team enjoyed, and when Ian Rush put them ahead early on the likelihood of a Palace victory seemed remote.

However, the ferocity with which Steve Coppell's team emerged from the half-time break startled Liverpool, and Mark Bright (his more celebrated partner, Ian Wright, was injured for the game) soon equalised.

Gary O'Reilly headed them in front, as, for the first time, the elder statesmen of Liverpool began to show their age. However, when Steve McMahon equalised and John Barnes scored a penalty with seven minutes remaining it seemed that the country's eminent force had restored order.

Not so: Andy Gray's back post header sent the tie into extra-time, four minutes into which Alan Pardew got the winner for Palace.....

1990 Manchester United 3-3 Oldham Athletic; Replay: United 2-1 Oldham
...and if that wasn't enough excitement to cause post-Sunday lunch indigestion, United and Oldham played out another humdinger immediately afterwards.

Alex Ferguson's precarious grip on his job was almost loosened by Joe Royle's Second Division Oldham. Earl Barrett put the Latics ahead following one of Jim Leighton's last mistakes in a United jersey, before Neil Webb equalised and subsequently headed the First Division side ahead.

Ian Marshall instantly drew Oldham level with a volley, sending the tie into extra-time. Danny Wallace converted a Brian McClair through-ball, before Roger Palmer's close range finish earned Oldham a replay. United came through that, before winning after another replay in the final against Palace to provide their manager with the first trophy of a glittering decade.

Cup Cheer Refreshes Bitter Taste of Premiership

It is fitting that the FA Cup third round sees the BBC get itself all dolled up and take centre stage with the broadcast of live matches. The combination of cockle-warming nostalgia, a cast of hokey provincials and the reverent adoration of a national institution fit the BBC's brief much better than the cut-throat free marketeers of Sky.

In many ways football as it is experienced through the FA Cup is almost a different game altogether than the harsh world of the Premiership. Not just in the fact that the BBC get their pick of the games to show live, but in the entire atmosphere that surrounds it.

The commentator introduced the Tamworth v Norwich tie on Saturday with the declaration that this was "the best weekend of the football calendar." The selling of the FA Cup, and its third round in particular, in this way is part of the Beeb's job in buttressing their flimsy live portfolio. And this sort of veneration is much more likely to be heard from those who curate the game's image and history, and supporters of lower division teams, than the vast majority of Premiership worshipping hordes.

To them, particularly supporters of the top clubs, the Cup is often a distraction, a scratch in the normal groove of league matters. Their opinion of the Cup has declined in a fashion almost commensurate with that of the managers and chairmen of their clubs, many of whom rest players for cup ties in order to preserve resources for crucial relegation or European place battles.

Most in the media castigate this attitude and bemoan the 'blatant disrespect shown to the FA Cup', claiming that the supporters would love to win the trophy, the only chance - along with the even more degraded League Cup - for many of them to win silverware at all.

But the fact that no club outside the 'big four' (Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea) has won the Cup since 1995 has almost totally obscured visions of glorious Saturday afternoons in May from the view of the rest of the clubs, only exacerbating their managers' prioritisation of league safety.

Still, what this denuding means is that on weekends like the one just gone, football seems to exist in a much nicer, warmer place. Indeed after a weekend of early round Cup action, the snarl of controversy and overseriousness that the Premiership returns with seem inappropriate, or even ludicrous. It's a little like when one of your friends comes home from travelling in Nepal, or studying yoga in India, and goes on about how ridiculous the rat race of the developed world is.

It really puts things in perspective, man.

Undoubtedly, this quality helps keep the tournament alive and in relatively rude health. Of course, the fact that it provides novelty - in the spotlight that it throws on hitherto unheralded corners of the football map - and excitement - for those who enjoy those rare moments in the limelight - is part of it too.

But just as the attention the Premiership receives adds to its perceived 'value', the excessive importance it is imbued with is frequently tiresome and undoubtedly unhealthy. The microscopic analysis of refereeing decisions; the paranoiac vitriol of managers who, to a man, swear to being the victims of all-encompassing plots against them; the 'simulation'; the tapping; the hangdog, sleepless countenances of struggling managers whose very public humiliation seems like some unbearably cruel torture; the fear football that paralyses teams for whom relegation is now 'unthinkable' rather than merely unwelcome.

It is, of course, condescension of the first order that characterises the coverage of the cup exploits of such clubs as Tamworth. The interviews with the milkman-cum-centre forward, the chairman who spent the week painting the grandstand, the tea lady who remembers the last big Cup run in 1975.

But for all that, the restorative quality of a bit of a wander around the unfashionable outposts of the game is clear: as well as providing football with a much needed link to the past in a time of rapid change, it also reminds the game's many 'consumers', like the goat-herders of the Himalayan foothills do our bead-wearing, incense-burning friends, that there is, indeed, a whole other world out there.