4th round. Who do we want? We get West Ham

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TomLong78
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Re: 4th round. Who do we want? We get West Ham

Post by TomLong78 » Sun Jan 30, 2022 9:25 am

harriershane wrote:
Sat Jan 29, 2022 6:58 pm

Which one is bigger contextually and in the history of the club would you say?
Great question Shane. As I am “experienced” enough to remember 1994, these are my thoughts.

In terms of the FA Cup competition, clearly our last 16 tie in 1994 is/was a “bigger” game. If we lose on Saturday, history will record that clearly.

But…

IMHO this Saturday is a bigger “event” than the 5th Round tie in 1994. That is largely because of the way the world has changed in the last 30 years.

In 1994, we were a non-league club who reached Round 5, only about the fourth such club to do so since WWII. Non-league football at the time remained largely semi-pro, even in the Conference. The only full-time sides were usually the relegated League clubs seeking to bounce straight back. The Premier League was in its infancy, prior to the explosion of TV money and international billionaires creating a worldwide “product”. Yes, some clubs were starting to sign international stars, but look at the team West Ham fielded at Aggborough that day. With the exception of Miklosko in goal, it was a team of honest British pros, as football had been for a century before.

In terms of the coverage for the game in 1994, it was the lead game on that evening’s MOTD, but this was a time where only one match per round would be live, moved to the Sunday afternoon for the purpose. All other games would generally be on the Saturday, unless the police required games to be shifted, because too many local clubs had been drawn at home etc.

If you wanted to enjoy the build up via the media in 1994, you needed to buy a newspaper, watch one of the four terrestrial TV channels at the right time - generally the local regional news programmes on the Friday evening or Football Focus on Saturday lunchtime - or set your video recorder to help you watch it later. Again, satellite TV was in its infancy, and without the proliferation of channels, whilst hardly anyone had domestic access to the internet (nor do I anticipate you’d have found much about the game on there anyway).

1994 was our first impressive FA Cup run in the “proper” rounds. It was the first time we’d knocked League clubs out of the FA Cup and the first time we’d reached the third round or further. Our record until then was pretty poor for a “big” non-league club. Despite the fact that we’re now seen as having a good Cup record, I still don’t always believe it - although I understand that in the last 50 years only two non-league clubs have reached the 4th Round or further on three occasions, Telford (United/AFC) and now us, so perhaps there is something in it.

And 2022?

You can draw your own comparisons, but this Saturday will see a game between two teams of fully professional footballers, one team of which will be earning the sort of money we would never have thought it possible to earn in the UK playing professional sport. The gap in divisions will be bigger, with us now one level below where we were in 1994, but given we’re now full-time, it is an interesting argument as to the relative gap between the teams in 1994 and 2022.

The game will be live on BBC1, one of several 4th Round games shown live across terrestrial and satellite television. Other games can be watched via the internet. The build up will be across multiple television channels and the internet, downloadable to be consumed at a time to suit the viewer/reader, and with all the content created, we could probably all do very little from about Wednesday onwards but immerse ourselves in it…

Hence why I think Saturday feels a “bigger” event, because we will be spending days in the lead up reading and hearing just how big it is!

Of course, whilst I anticipate that longer term history will ultimately record the 1994 game as the “bigger”, if we were to become the first ever step 6 side to beat a Premier League team… well, one can dream!

Joe Stalin
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Re: 4th round. Who do we want? We get West Ham

Post by Joe Stalin » Sun Jan 30, 2022 7:11 pm

Top post, Tom. Of course, the FA Cup itself was a bigger deal in 1994, before it's sad devaluation due to the Premier League's continued growth and the bloody Champions League too. I'd say 1994 was definitely the bigger event (especially because it was the first time for KHFC), but this weekend is clearly a taller order. West Ham are a far better side, and we are comparatively weaker. Should be an amazing day all the same.

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