Let the FA Cup begin

Let the FA Cup begin.

How good it is to see the FA Cup. You do look healthier, better, fitter and stronger than ever before. Some of us have missed you desperately and wondered exactly what you've been getting up to since last we made acquaintance with you. We know you're still referred to as the Emirates FA Cup but since when did that matter?

 So what if you're now sponsored by a Middle East airline and that Wembley Stadium, once the home of those towers has now been replaced by over arching arches. That's fine. We can live with that knowledge as long as it's a monumentally lucrative money spinner that keeps the business that is football ticking over and in the rudest health. It was just lovely to see that iconic football trophy still gleaming, still shining iridescently through the darkness and gloom of a West Midlands evening.

Last night at the deliciously named Damson Park in the heart of Birmingham you could say that the FA Cup had picked a plum tie for the TV cameras but that would be incredibly corny. Suffice it to say that Solihull Moors met Blackpool on the most level of playing fields and the FA Cup could take a sharp intake of breath once again. This is rather like bumping into an old friend in the pub and buying a pint for old times sake. The FA Cup has a habit of bringing people together and just reminiscing fondly on the good and bad times.

There were times last night when it almost felt we were back in grassroots territory. The stands and terraces were small and compact. the floodlights looked remarkably like well lit torches and the managers were so close to each other that they may just as well have been brothers. The second round of the FA Cup is the FA Cup in its infant, nursery stages, still coming to terms with its surroundings, still showing its baby teeth and yet to encounter maturity and adolescence.

Amid all the dark dinginess of the last evening of November there was the barely visible car park, the most charming of refreshment kiosks that was no larger than the size of a match box and some very smartly dressed Solihull Moors chairmen who smiled proudly whenever the cameras homed in on them. This was a night for equality, egalitarianism of the highest order and football without class barriers, condescension and snooty superiority.

Blackpool have famous FA Cup history but history that now seems positively prehistoric. In 1953 the legendary Stan Matthews, Bill Perry and Stan Mortensen combined brilliantly in the Queen's Coronation year to bring the FA Cup back to Blackpool's Golden Mile. The black and white images still linger nostalgically but the Blackpool of modern times have certainly experienced all those fairground of emotions that have become part and parcel of a team who have been there and back.

Several seasons ago the chirpy and permanently ebullient Ian Holloway took his modest Blackpool back to the top flight of English football with a Premier League place as their reward for honest labours. But then altitude problems set in for the Bloomfield Road club and Blackpool dropped through the divisions rather like a set of kids birthday party balloons falling helplessly into parkland bushes, burst seemingly beyond redemption.

Now Blackpool are back into League One which is roughly where they were over 40 years ago when Mickey Walsh scored that magnificent volleyed goal that whistled past the keeper on one of BBC's Match of the Day Goals of the Season. Since then there have been disasters, near extinction at times and the kind of hard luck stories that you simply couldn't make up. Still, Blackpool are rather like a bobbing boat in the middle of the ocean, still sea worthy and primed for full restoration in perhaps a couple of seasons or so.

The behind the scenes problems haven't helped of course. Owen Oyston and his band of merry men have made life both difficult and challenging. The Blackpool man has been, apparently, not so much an interfering busybody but a plain nuisance. He's been verbally attacked by the Blackpool faithful, driven to the brink and if the fans had their way he'd be out of the door in double quick time. Still at least things haven't gone appallingly wrong and there will be happier days.

Last night the Tangerines still looked as if they belonged to the big time and the nationwide exposure of the BBC cameras. The defensive unit of Ben Heneghan, Curtis Tilt, Donervon Daniels, goalkeeper Mark Howard and Michael Nottingham all carried out their duties efficiently, conscientiously and diligently. Whenever Solihull Moors attacked with some cohesion and clarity all four men shut up the shutters, bolted up the steel doors and prevented any Blackpool player from sneaking  through for the vital breakthrough.

In fact there were moments when Solihull looked so sure of themselves and daring to dream that Blackpool did look shaken and stirred. 34 year old Darren Carter in particular, who resembled a gypsy with his tie backed hair, roved and roamed around a forest of orange Blackpool shirts like a battle hardened warrior from yesteryear. Sadly, Carter couldn't quite find his sense of direction and it all seemed to fizzle out like a spent firework.

Back in the middle of the Solihull Moors midfield engine room it was every man for himself, a National League team in happy go lucky, carefree mode throwing caution to the wind. When the likes of Luke Maxwell, Jamie Reckford and the particularly lively Jamey Osbourne linked up with the gypsy spirit of Carter, the home side sensed the lingering smell of an FA Cup upset. Admittedly, Solihull were never likely to repeat the exploits of non League Sutton in their FA Cup third round win against old First Division  Coventry City 31 years ago but they did force the issue on more than one occasion.

And then the game drifted and meandered rather like remote country lane, seemingly content to go its leisurely way into the depths of a West Midlands night. The goal-less draw smacked of a gentleman's agreement. Solihull looked delighted with their night's work knowing that a replay at Bloomfield Road suited both parties. Blackpool, for their part, must have thought briefly back to the Matthews Final for perhaps a minute or two. Perhaps they were privately hoping that the FA Cup still had something special up its sleeve. Maybe the magicians will now be working overtime. Somehow the FA Cup may always do something when least expected. Solihull Moors can, albeit temporarily, keep dreaming.