Soccer Strikes Back

What a wonderful weekend for the world's oldest football competition, the FA Cup. Yesterday saw plucky Nuneaton and Torquay hold Premiership opposition in Middlesbrough and Birmingham. Millwall, langushing in the Championship, earned a replay with Everton and Tamworth have another crack against Stoke. Meanwhile, credit must be given to Huddersfield, many league positions and millions behind Chelsea, who only went down 2-1 at Stamford Bridge. Over in Luton and we found ourselves with an early contender for game of the year - less than a week into 2006! - as Champions League holders Liverpool found themselves 3-1 down. And though their Premiership class held out and they recovered to win 5-3, they nearly had the shock of their lives.

Speaking of shocks, Sunday's games threw up some startling scorelines. Leyton Orient held on to win 2-1 at Fulham - we're all happy with that one - and Nigel Clough's Burton Albion somehow managed to avoid defeat to mighty Manchester United with a brave 0-0 draw. Wayne Rooney will never have imagined he'd be playing non league opposition and now he'll have to do it all over again. And the last game of the round has just finished and it was in keeping with this weird weekend: Spurs quickly went 2-0 up to lowly Leicester City and somehow contrived to lose 3-2 in injury time. Same old Spurs, you might say, but in this weekend of shocks, perhaps a Spurs win would have been more surprising...