Oh, for another glorious run

Robbie Simpson’s first goal celebration against Notts Forest

IT SHAPES entire careers, creates memories that last a lifetime and bolsters weakening bank accounts.

Anyone suggesting the FA Cup is a diminished competition these days should be pointed towards Athletic’s glorious run last season for evidence to the contrary.

Just look at Matt Smith: going nowhere in a professional life which had taken him on loan to Macclesfield and which threatened to grind to a standstill, the striker who tore Liverpool’s defence apart suddenly earned a place in the national football consciousness and is now loving life at Leeds United.

Even in the Championship, the revitalised 24-year-old university graduate is knocking in the goals as he enjoys the spoils of a lucrative contract at Elland Road.

Examine the faces of the supporters packed into Boundary Park, which vibrated as a result of the team’s staggering efforts last term to see off Nottingham Forest and Liverpool and then so dramatically hold Everton to a draw.

Nobody who was at any of those games will ever forget the succession of shocking, glorious moments which wrote such spellbinding drama, which served as a counterpoint to the dross so often served up in the league programme.

And consider the cash banked in the run to a fifth-round replay at Goodison Park. Even with player bonuses paid out, prize money, gate receipts and three games televised live on ITV contributed more than £1million to Athletic.

The legacy of last year’s competition is to soon have permanence in the shape of investment into the new North Stand at Boundary Park, rumoured to be pencilled in to start being built early in 2014.

If Wolves can be tamed this weekend and a second-round tie negotiated, those working the heavy machinery on the Broadway side of the old ground may get the best seats in the house when Athletic again try to shake off League One mediocrity against high-profile opposition come the weekend of January 4-5.

It may be Athletic’s 17th successive season in League One, but this is a club capable of lifting itself to a higher plane in the world’s oldest knock-out competition.