Heroes for the Night or Why You Must Love the FA Cup

In a great upset last night during a round 3 replay (that is rematch) of FA Cup action, which is a major soccer competition for the British Isles Havant & Waterlooville FC shocked Swansea in 4-2 banger of a game. What makes this upset notable, is that the Hawks are a number of leagues down the huge interconnected pyramid that is the U.K. Football system. There are literally thousands of soccer teams in this system most of which theoretically have a shot at winning the FA cup, though in reality only eight times has a non-premier league team won the whole thing in its 140 year history. To place the difference in supposed quality between the two teams in some perspective, Swansea play in Coca-Cola League One, in fact they sit atop the table, which is one league removed from the Barclay's Premier League, the one that features all your favorites: Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and 16 other major soccer teams.  Havant & Waterlooville FC on the other hand play in the Blue Square Conference South division which is a number of leagues down the chain. This equates to about 83 places away. Most soccer systems around the world have a mechanism known as promotion-regulation, whereby a team that finishes at the top of their table, i.e. top of the league have the opportunity to play in the next higher league. By the same token a team near the bottom of their table, may lose their spot and be regulated to a lower league the next season. Havant & Waterlooville would have to be promoted 3 times to compete in the same league as Swansea. Three times! If they happened to be regulated out of their current table they would be in the Isthmian Premier League, the Isthmian Premier League! The game itself was pretty spectacular, 6 goals is a fairly high scoring affair. Moreover, as the announcers pointedly mentioned, that these guys Heroes for the Night, are probably going to have to call in to work in the morning, along with their reveling fan base.  In another example to elucidate the uncharted territory that this team now finds itself; the website that belongs to the Havant & Waterlooville team broke last night as so many people suddenly became interested in them. Their fourth round match is against the mighty Liverpool, yes that Premier League mainstay Liverpool, on January 26th. It is likely that this somewhat unlikely run will end at Anfield, but lest you think they aren't relishing the occasion to play, you can already purchase a T-shirt for the game which details their road to Liverpool. Moreover, the game will net a significant cash windfall for the team, somewhere on the order of £500,000. If the greatest upset in FA cup history were to occur and the Hawks manage to beat Liverpool, the closest analogy that is available in the United States is if a World Series of Baseball began with all the teams in the MLS plus the Entire Farm League system and the New York Yankees lost to the Tampa Yankees (a single A team). You really never know...but that's why you play the game! Go on Hawks!