The FA Cup is the oldest cup competition in the world. It is more than 150 years old. In the same year as the first ever FA Cup match, Germany was created, there was a Napoleon in captivity having been removed as leader of France, Queen Victoria opened the Royal Albert Hall, and the President of the United States was Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant. The FA Cup has survived from that alien, ancient time, to provide us with something that few other competitions in the world can provide. As unlikely as it may seem, it is still theoretically possible, a century and a half later, for a team that starts in the earliest rounds – today, and all over this first weekend of August, before the elite clubs have even remembered that the competition exists – to go all the way and win the competition. That’s something worth celebrating.
Continue reading “A History of Magic”