Jolly Green Giant Killing

Previously on World of Spurt... We've talked about the Romance of the Cup before but it's nice to see ourselves vindicated by one of the most extraordinary FA Cup weekends ever.

With semi-final places at Wembley up for grabs, you'd think the big boys would be licking their lips and getting their suits measured already. But at 3pm on Sunday it now looks like the biggest weekend of giant killing since Jack went postal up the end of the beanstalk with the AK47 and the rocket launcher.

Has there ever been an FA Cup weekend like it? We're too lazy to look it up, but surely not in living memory.

Okay, so maybe Portsmouth were a touch fortunate to mug Man Utd at old Trafford in yesterday's lunchtime fixture. But Barnsley thoroughly deserved their more emphatic victory over Chelsea in last nights late game. Magnificent stuff from the Tykes and another stake in the heart for Avram Grant – with the media's knives being well and truly sharpened for the Chelsea boss.

And now Cardiff 2-0 up away against Middlesbrough at half-time and looking utterly superior to the Premiership side who were booed off the park by their own fans. With Bristol Rovers or West Brom guaranteed a place in the final tie of the weekend, we could see an FA Cup winner from not only outside the big four, but the top flight entirely.

That's why the FA Cup remains the most exciting knock-out competition in the footballing firmament.

The Romance of the Cup

It's FA cup Saturday here in UK-land which means dispatching the other half for retail therapy (and replenishing of the Hardcore beer supply) while we settle down in relative peace to an afternoon of BBC sofaville.

This is the fifth round of the famous old trophy with 16 teams competing for a quarter-final place and traditionally it's time to wheel out phrases like 'romance of the cup', 'minnows springing a surprise' and 'banana skin in waiting'. Translation for overseas readers: some of the smaller teams have a remote chance of turning over one of the major franchises (or teams as we still qauintly insist on calling them).

Uttter bollocks of course and so last round, No-one outside of the big four has won the FA cup in ten years and it's unlikely to change anytime soon. Still, if there is to be a year when someone else breaks the stranglehold then this could well be it, with half the teams in today's games from outside the top flight.

And the odds are somewhat shortened by a sumptuous Man Utd Arsenal game later this afternoon when one of them must go and my fellow Spurter (and Red Devils fan) Vlad and most of the already rather inebriated male population will undoubtedly be tuning in to the live game on the BBC.

Traditionally a real snorter, Wenger and Ferguson have dialled down the hatred and mutual loathing (a touch) this season but this fixture will be keenly contested and both teams will want to set down a marker for the Premiership race which is currently tighter than a gnat's chuff.

The bonus appetiser is a rather more traditional blood n thunder lunchtime tie with Bristol Rovers versus Southampton. Largely devoid of skill but with plenty of huff n puff, the Hardcore sympathies are immediately engaged by the underdogs, and Rovers push the Saints hard, relying on traditional lower league attributes of a partisan crowd, a bumpy pitch, a low winter sun and a muscular approach.

Rovers are unlucky with several good chances, a second half goal ruled out and then Ricky Lambert's 84^th minute deflected free-kick sees them through. Fairy. Tale. Ahar for the Pirates, they've jolly rogered the Saints to reach the quarter-finals for the first time in 50 years. Perhaps this is the underdogs year after all?