Football: Big chance for the small clubs

Guy Hodgson on this weekend's ties in the most open FA Cup for years

Ah, the heavy beat of anticipation on FA Cup fifth round day. Every club counts three matches to Wembley and a frisson of excitement runs through them. More so this year than for a long time.

The twin towers which began as a desirable but hazy vision in January has become a more defined objective for the surviving clubs this year thanks to the absence of the usual suspects when it comes to making off with the trophy in May.

Arsenal, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham have won the Cup every year bar two since 1981 and with their removal the temptation to think about tailors checking for the fitting of Wembley suits becomes irresistible. It has been the year of the upset. We are seeing the stirring of the have- nots and never-hads.

Even Manchester City, whose wretched season of chopping and changing managers suddenly has taken an alternative complexion. They meet the Premiership's bottom club Middlesbrough in the fifth round today to the accompaniment of warnings from the police saying they will clamp down on ticket touts. Old hat at Old Trafford, of course, but at Maine Road?

There will be 31,000 to watch the First Division team that lost matches almost as frequently as they discarded name plates on the boss's door until Frank Clark's appointment in December arrested the decline so much so and they go into today's match with a seven-game unbeaten run.

Expectation, fanned by United's defeat at Wimbledon, is rampant in the sky blue side of Manchester which has had Clark dashing for a huge dose of reality. "There's an opportunity because the bigger clubs are out," he said, "but unless we win today the opportunity will have gone. Clubs like Middlesbrough will also have noticed who's left in the competition.''

The match of aspiring giants in stricken circumstances would be fascinating anyway but the contest will pit arguably the best two dribblers in Britain. The twinkling feet of Georgi Kinkladze have illuminated City's path to safety while Juninho seems to be inspired by the prospect of playing at Wembley.

Certainly it has lit Kinkladze's touchpaper and yesterday he was talking about going to the old ground three times this year. "I believe I have chances in the FA Cup, the promotion play-offs and in the international between Georgia and England in April. I think promotion is possible if City can keep on playing as they have." A severe dose of Cup fever has been diagnosed.

City are one of seven Nationwide clubs hoping to make it to the last eight, including Portsmouth who travel to Leeds with five consecutive wins behind them and Queen's Park Rangers, who will try to halt the Wimbledon charge in all three domestic trophies. Indeed there is only one all-Premiership tie today and even that is a throwback to the fourth round, Blackburn versus Coventry, for the right to meet Derby.

The lowest placed of the lot are Chesterfield and Wrexham who fly the flag for the Second Division after removing such notables as Bolton and West Ham respectively.

Chesterfield, in the fifth round for the first time in 47 years, play host to Nottingham Forest with injury worries about their skipper, Sean Dyche (who used to play for Forest), and the scorer of a hat-trick at Burnden Park, Kevin Davies. There are fitness problems for Wrexham's game at Birmingham, but it is the home side who are afflicted with nine players doubtful including their captain, Steve Bruce.

If they have worries, however, they are mild compared to Leicester City's. They meet Chelsea tomorrow with Mustafa Izzet, Neil Lennon, Emile Heskey and Matt Elliott suspended, three players definitely out injured and another four doubtful. Chelsea, meanwhile, can afford the luxury of keeping the frustrated Gianluca Vialli on the bench.

Arguably the tie of the round also takes place tomorrow when Bradford City, complete with 36-year-old Chris Waddle, play host to Sheffield Wednesday, who released the former England winger last summer.

Waddle scored a goal to eclipse even David Beckham's effort against Wimbledon with an exquisite lob against Everton in the last round and the overall quality of his performance that day will ensure he will be man-marked, probably by Peter Atherton.

"I don't care what they do," he said. "If you're marked you might not get as much of the ball but you drag people away and it's up to your team- mates to use the space you leave. Let them worry about us. We're fourth from bottom of the First Division while they're in the Premiership's top 10, so we've nothing to lose.''

In the year of the upset, more than the Wednesday players will be concerned this morning. With the path to Wembley less congested with heavyweights than normal they may never get a better chance again.