List of All Articles with Tag 'football'

Under-fire Sheffield United boss Paul Heckingbottom insisted he could hold his head up high after a number of fans turned on him following his side’s 5-0 capitulation away to fellow strugglers Burnley. The odds on Heckingbottom becoming the first Premier League manager to lose his job this season tumbled after a humbling defeat, in which a Burnley side who started the day bottom of the table scored an opener through Jay Rodriguez just 15 seconds in and recorded their biggest top-flight win since 1970. Jacob Bruun Larsen doubled the lead and, with the Blades reduced to 10 men when Oli McBurnie was sent off before half-time, they crumbled in the second half with Zeki Amdouni, Luca Koleosho and Josh Brownhill helping Burnley end their wait for a home league win this season at the eighth attempt. United never looked in the game, and fans made their feelings known at the final whistle. “I bet they’re nearly as angry as me,” Heckingbottom said. “I’ve had this now since the beginning of September. But the one thing I can say is I can walk out of this stadium with my head held high. “I know how hard I work for everyone at the club. I won’t change, I’ll make sure the staff do the same. And we continue to give everything we’ve got with what we’ve got. That won’t change. But, as I said the first time I was asked this, you’re asking the wrong person (about his future)… “Of course if fans start changing, it changes the dynamic. It doesn’t change how I feel or my job. I just said to the players in there, I can walk out with my head held high but you can’t kid people. “The fans are right to shout, say that wasn’t good enough. I was almost singing along with them at one point.” Given Burnley were two goals to the good at the time with United barely laying a glove on them, McBurnie’s red card in the first minute of stoppage time was hardly a turning point, but the Scot’s two yellow cards in the space of 10 minutes killed off any hope of a comeback. “He’s let me down,” Heckingbottom said. “He knows he has.” Burnley’s first home win and first clean sheet of the season lifted them off the foot of the table, and relieved some of the tension that has been building around Turf Moor. “I think we were so desperate to do it,” Kompany said. “We felt against (Crystal) Palace was good, against West Ham was good. You don’t know when it’s coming but I felt we always believed it was coming so for us hopefully it’s a starting point. “The performance today was really good but you have to turn it into results. I just hope with the goals they’ve scored today and the fact we had a lot of goalscorers as well, that’s an important sign with Lyle Foster still not being there. Hopefully of the consistency of doing that will remain.” Both of Burnley’s wins to date have come against sides they were promoted with during the summer. The challenge of taking points of established Premier League sides remains, starting away to Wolves on Tuesday night. “I’ll have a glass of red wine tonight and then back on to Wolves, it’s coming on Tuesday,” Kompany said. “When we win there’s only three days to enjoy it. But we go again. It’s the same recipe really. “I see the boys making progress, they work as hard as the top teams in the league. They don’t get the rewards for it at the moment but now we live towards the Wolverhampton game.” Read More Kevin Sinfield greeted by Sir Gareth Edwards after latest fundraising challenge Neal Maupay makes the right impression on his manager Mikel Arteta heaps praise on players as Arsenal pull four points clear at summit Will Jacks looks at positives after England central contract snub Brentford beat Luton with strong second-half show Five-star Burnley crush Sheffield United at Turf Moor

Scotland will kick off Euro 2024 after they were drawn to face tournament hosts Germany in Group A. Steve Clarke’s side, who sealed qualification for the finals with two matches to spare, will play in the opening match in Munich on June 14 before games against Switzerland and Hungary. Gareth Southgate’s England were drawn to face Denmark, Slovenia and Serbia in Group C. Wales still need to win two play-off matches in March if they are going to make it, but face a difficult assignment against 2022 World Cup finalists France, the Netherlands and Austria if they do. Scotland lost to Germany at the group stage of Euro 92, a 2-0 defeat preventing the Scots from progressing. Scotland also faced West Germany at the finals of the 1986 World Cup, where the Germans won 2-1 en route to the final. The Germans have won the three most recent encounters. Scotland have never faced Hungary in a competitive match but have won three of their previous nine encounters, while they beat the Swiss 1-0 in Euro 96 at Villa Park – the teams’ last competitive encounter. England’s opening match will be against Serbia, a team they have never faced at senior level before, in Gelsenkirchen. The team then move on to Frankfurt to take on Denmark, who they beat in the semi-final of Euro 2020. Their final group match will be against Slovenia in Cologne, a team England beat in their final group match at the 2010 World Cup. Read More Will Jacks looks at positives after England central contract snub Brentford beat Luton with strong second-half show Five-star Burnley crush Sheffield United at Turf Moor

Brentford scored three second-half goals to edge an important Premier League victory over Luton at Gtech Community Stadium. Neal Maupay opened the scoring and Ben Mee added a second soon after. Although Luton’s Jacob Brown pulled a goal back, Shandon Baptiste sealed a 3-1 success for Thomas Frank’s men with nine minutes remaining. However, the Bees’ injury troubles worsened when Kristoffer Ajer picked up a knock in the warm-up, with Saman Ghoddos replacing him. The hosts lacked any edge to their play in the first half as they struggled to play without midfield operator Mathias Jensen, who remained sidelined with an abductor injury. Luton’s absent Alfie Doughty, who picked up a hip injury in the week, was replaced by centre-back Amari’i Bell, who slotted in as a makeshift left-wing back. In the early stages of the contest, Bryan Mbeumo beat Jamaica international Bell on the outside, before his deft cross was dealt with by Luton’s tight defence. Neither side registered a shot on target inside the first half hour, although Yehor Yarmoliuk came close for the hosts. The midfielder’s close-range effort took a heavy deflection off Carlton Morris before the ball narrowly missed the inside of Thomas Kaminski’s post and went out for a corner. The Bees gained momentum from this and Mbeumo was in the thick of things again in the 37th minute. The attacker glided past his marker, driving inside, before producing a whipped curling shot which narrowly missed the target. The six-goal man was Brentford’s only real outlet in the first half and his neat flicks and feints opened opportunities up for attack partner Yoane Wissa, who tested Kaminski moments later. The home side came out for the second half strongly and broke the deadlock in the 49th minute. The pacey Wissa took up a dangerous position on the left and sent a testing cross into the box. The ball cannoned off Gabriel Osho and into the path of the alert Maupay, who opened the scoring. Frank’s half-time wisdom paid dividends for the west Londoners and they doubled their lead in the 56th minute through Mee. Mbeumo’s corner found the head of the rising central defender, whose effort deflected off Morris and into Kaminski’s net. Luton had paid the price for an erratic opening 10 minutes of the second half, as their defensive structure and organisation abandoned them.However, Rob Edwards’ team sought a way back and Brown, who helped them to a first home win of the season last week, came off the bench to make it 2-1 in the 76th minute. A week after his 83rd-minute winner against Crystal Palace, Brown cut through the middle of the Brentford backline and shot powerfully into the bottom corner of Mark Flekken’s goal. However, in keeping with the Hatters’ day, a series of mishaps led to Brentford sealing the win five minutes later. The ball pinballed around Luton’s penalty box and no defender managed to clear their lines before a poor parried save from Kaminski gifted Baptiste with an easy tap-in to round off the scoring. Read More Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard fire Arsenal four points clear at PL summit Five-star Burnley crush Sheffield United at Turf Moor Ronnie O’Sullivan out to ‘ruin careers’ of trophy rivals after reaching UK final Bristol blow Gloucester away for derby delight Police charge more than 40 away fans after major disorder outside Villa Park ‘We never lost trust’: Sarina Wiegman remained confident of England comeback

The 2023/24 Premier League season is under way and you can follow every game and every goal right here with The Independent. This year sees Manchester City try to defend their crown and claim a historic fourth title in succession. Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering City, who also won the Champions League and FA Cup last season, will have to see off Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and the rest to claim an unprecedented sixth league title in seven years. Meanwhile Luton Town are making their first appearance in the Premier League, having risen from non-league in an incredible decade of progress. They followed Championship winners Burnley and second-placed Sheffield United in earning promotion to the top flight. Follow the latest action from the Premier League below.

Germany will host the European Championships next summer as England head to Euro 2024 as one of the favourites. After the Covid-delayed Euros were held across the continent in 2021, the tournament returns to its one-country host format. Germany is set to be a popular destination because of its strong football culture and hosted a memorable World Cup in 2006. The Olympiastadion in Berlin will stage another major final, while Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena and Borussia Dortmund’s iconic Signal Iduna Park are two of Europe’s biggest grounds. Euro 2024 draw LIVE: England, Scotland and Wales discover finals opponents for Germany Here’s everything you need to know. Euro 2024 stadiums Berlin - Olympiastadion Berlin Capacity: 75,000 Key games: Final, quarter-final 3 Cologne - Cologne Stadium (RheinEnergieSTADION) Capacity: 50,000 Key games: Last-16 match 3 Dortmund - BVB Stadion Dortmund (Signal Iduna Park) Capacity: 65,000 Key games: Semi-final 2 Dusseldorf - Dusseldorf Arena (MERKUR SPIEL-ARENA) Capacity: 51,000 Key games: Quarter-final 4 Frankfurt - Frankfurt Arena (Deutsche Bank Park) Capacity: 55,000 Key games: Last-16 match 5 Gelsenkirchen - Arena AufSchalke (Veltins-Arena) Capacity: 55,000 Key games: Last-16 match 4 Hamburg - Volksparkstadion Hamburg Capacity: 52,000 Key games: Quarter-final 2 Leipzig - Leipzig Stadium (Red Bull Arena) Capacity: 43,000 Key games: Last-16 match 8 Munich - Munich Football Arena (Allianz Arena) Capacity: 70,000 Key games: Tournament opener, semi-final 1 Stuttgart - Stuttgart Arena (MHPArena) Capacity: 55,000 Key games: Quarter-final 1 Read More Euro 2024 draw LIVE: England, Scotland and Wales discover opponents What time is the Euro 2024 draw and what are the pots? Euro 2024 draw: Top seeds England could face Scotland and Wales What are Scotland’s best and worst scenarios in the Euro 2024 draw? What are England’s best and worst case scenarios in Euro 2024 draw? Euro 2024: The cheapest ways to follow England and Scotland in Germany next summer

Burnley ended their wait for a Premier League home win in style with a 5-0 rout of fellow strugglers Sheffield United, climbing off the foot of the table and piling pressure on Blades boss Paul Heckingbottom. Jay Rodriguez needed just 15 seconds to head Vincent Kompany’s side in front and Jacob Bruun Larsen doubled the lead in the 28th minute, with United ending the first half a man down after Oli McBurnie collected two petulant yellow cards in quick succession. More pain followed for United in the second half as Zeki Amdouni and Luca Koleosho scored two in the space of three minutes before Josh Brownhill added a fifth, giving Burnley their biggest ever Premier League win. No English league club had ever opened a season with eight home defeats and Burnley could not afford to set that record against a United side who began the day one point better off, with these two starting the day first and second in terms of the worst starts to a Premier League season by promoted sides. Both Burnley’s wins to date have come against teams promoted alongside them in the summer, but after encouraging displays against Crystal Palace and West Ham, three points offer tangible reward for improving performances. For United it was another chastening day, the pain of defeat increased by the loss of McBurnie to a needless suspension. There was no sign of the sort of quality that will be needed to get them out of trouble. Burnley scored the opener with a move straight from kick-off. James Trafford punted the ball forward, Amdouni shifted it to the left and Charlie Taylor whipped in a first-time cross for Rodriguez to head home. It was the quickest Premier League goal of the season, and made Rodriguez the first player in the league’s history to score in the opening 15 seconds of two separate games, 10 years and one day after he pounced for Southampton against Chelsea. Burnley doubled their lead when Bruun Larsen got in front of Luke Thomas to reach Dara O’Shea’s long ball, cutting in off the right before passing the ball under the despairing dive of Wes Foderingham. United’s frustrations soon surfaced. McBurnie, back in the starting 11 after scoring the late consolation in last week’s home defeat to Bournemouth, was lucky to only see yellow for catching O’Shea with an elbow in the 36th minute, leaving Kompany livid on the sideline. Moments later O’Shea caught McBurnie, who delivered enough theatrics to ensure his counterpart also saw yellow, and Kompany joined both players in the book for his remonstrations. More was to follow and when McBurnie caught O’Shea with an arm once again in first-half stoppage time, he earned a second yellow card and a head start on the trudge to the dressing room. Heckingbottom, already forced into one substitution due to an injury for George Baldock, made a triple change at the break as Benie Traore, James McAtee and William Osula came on for Thomas, John Fleck and Cameron Archer. It meant only half United’s outfield players that started the match were still on for the start of the second half. But it did little to change United’s fortunes and the floodgates opened after the 73rd minute. Burnley’s third came when United failed to clear a corner and Jordan Beyer headed the ball down for Amdouni to spring between Jack Robinson and Anel Ahmedhodzic before playing the ball beyond Foderingham. Moments later Koleosho cracked a shot off the crossbar when Foderingham could only parry Amdouni’s shot, but the teenager was soon celebrating his first Premier League goal as he shrugged off a challenge and beat the goalkeeper at his near post. Brownhill rifled in the fifth from the edge of the box with 10 minutes to go. Read More Ronnie O’Sullivan out to ‘ruin careers’ of trophy rivals after reaching UK final Bristol blow Gloucester away for derby delight Police charge more than 40 away fans after major disorder outside Villa Park ‘We never lost trust’: Sarina Wiegman remained confident of England comeback Mauricio Pochettino understands reason behind early struggles for Moises Caicedo Ange Postecoglou knows he can succeed at Tottenham by sticking to plan

The 2023/24 Premier League season is under way and you can follow every game and every goal right here with The Independent. This year sees Manchester City try to defend their crown and claim a historic fourth title in succession. Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering City, who also won the Champions League and FA Cup last season, will have to see off Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and the rest to claim an unprecedented sixth league title in seven years. Meanwhile Luton Town are making their first appearance in the Premier League, having risen from non-league in an incredible decade of progress. They followed Championship winners Burnley and second-placed Sheffield United in earning promotion to the top flight. Follow the latest action from the Premier League below.

The 2023/24 Premier League season is under way and you can follow every game and every goal right here with The Independent. This year sees Manchester City try to defend their crown and claim a historic fourth title in succession. Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering City, who also won the Champions League and FA Cup last season, will have to see off Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and the rest to claim an unprecedented sixth league title in seven years. Meanwhile Luton Town are making their first appearance in the Premier League, having risen from non-league in an incredible decade of progress. They followed Championship winners Burnley and second-placed Sheffield United in earning promotion to the top flight. Follow the latest action from the Premier League below.

The 2023/24 Premier League season is under way and you can follow every game and every goal right here with The Independent. This year sees Manchester City try to defend their crown and claim a historic fourth title in succession. Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering City, who also won the Champions League and FA Cup last season, will have to see off Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and the rest to claim an unprecedented sixth league title in seven years. Meanwhile Luton Town are making their first appearance in the Premier League, having risen from non-league in an incredible decade of progress. They followed Championship winners Burnley and second-placed Sheffield United in earning promotion to the top flight. Follow the latest action from the Premier League below.

The 2023/24 Premier League season is under way and you can follow every game and every goal right here with The Independent. This year sees Manchester City try to defend their crown and claim a historic fourth title in succession. Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering City, who also won the Champions League and FA Cup last season, will have to see off Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and the rest to claim an unprecedented sixth league title in seven years. Meanwhile Luton Town are making their first appearance in the Premier League, having risen from non-league in an incredible decade of progress. They followed Championship winners Burnley and second-placed Sheffield United in earning promotion to the top flight. Follow the latest action from the Premier League below.

As legends like Gianluigi Buffon and Miroslav Klose start to decide what Euro 2024 will look like, most of its audience will be watching the Premier League and the other domestic competitions. That will of course change by June, but 5pm Saturday is a strange time for a draw, that maybe touches on the strange place both the competition and Uefa are in right now. It’s not even like this draw holds the anxiety supporters used to associate with such events for major nations like England. That isn’t down to how good Gareth Southgate’s team are right now, either. No matter what names come out, over half of the competition will be spent eliminating a third of the field. The 36-game group stage will see 16 teams out of 24 go through to the next round. It is literally harder to get knocked out. That has of course been the case for most of the qualification campaign, a problem when a competition has been so expanded. It almost feels like it would be better to just finally push the Euros out to a more symmetrical 32 teams and considerably shorten the way you get there. As it is, Buffon and Klose will almost be deciding another preliminary stage in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie concert hall on Saturday. It should be acknowledged that Euro 2020 was immediately an entertaining tournament but it was still lopsided and it’s hard not to put part of the emotion down to the fact it was one of the first major events with crowds after Covid. Euro 2024 draw LIVE: England, Scotland and Wales discover finals opponents for Germany Before it, the first 24-team Euros in 2016 had mostly been a drab competition in terms of the football, characterised by low-scoring games where a series of smaller national sides played defensively reductive tactics. Wales, still having to go through the interminable play-offs for this, were one of the exceptions. They still wistfully talk about their time in France eight years ago. It was certainly difficult to fault the setting, and it is much the same with this. That is why Euro 2024 is a bit of a watershed. It is the first “traditional” tournament - to use the words of one federation head - in eight years. In the time between, there has been a World Cup in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. While anyone who was there would say that did an important job of reminding me people the country and its culture are always different to the state, events since have meant it will now be seen as a modern 1936 Olympics. The Russian national team’s absence from all this due to the suspension for the invasion of Ukraine are a reminder of that. Resentments still linger within Uefa over a recent attempt to bring back youth sides. Euro 2020 was then a continent-traversing competition, that the governing body have vowed never to do again. Aside from obvious environmental concerns, to go with the Covid restrictions, it diluted that sense of a nationwide party that comes with more self-contained tournaments. Not that there was much of a party in Qatar for the World Cup that followed. Very few fans travelled, and the legacy of that tournament commonly perceived is a litany of migrant labour abuses. None of this is to say western Europe is perfect, but you only have to compare the atmosphere around Doha with that of Germany for the 2006 World Cup. That is the memory that frames these Euros. Even a relative lack of excitement about the draw is tempered by the anticipation of a similarly great summer next year. That is where there is a little twist to this, though. Germany now finds itself on the more complicated other side of the process that led to that joyous Sommermarchen of 2006. Then, a national football talent programme combined with a football construction boom, to foster a love for an exhilarating new team as well as a sense of reunified nation finally coming together after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now, some of it is coming apart. Most immediately, the team hasn’t been good. None of those tournaments since 2016 have seen Germany get past the last 16, and the two World Cups brought elimination at the group stage. The old certainties about their national team have gone. You have frequently been able to write them off. You can’t even write about the coming talent in the same way, as Germany has been engulfed by debate over the type of players they produce. Federation officials have been sent abroad to figure out how you produce number-nines again. Julian Nagelsmann, for all his talented sophistication, isn't necessarily a rallying coach. Much more seriously, this has fed into some distasteful national debates about immigration and national identity, that has touched previous stars like Mesut Ozil. It is also known that there was tension regarding the decision to make a gesture over the rainbow armbands in Qatar. Far from the happiness of 2006, there are now fears of hooliganism in the build-up to the competition, fired by incidents like Eintracht Frankfurt fans before last season’s Europa League final. To bring it all full circle, there is also tension between the Bundesliga and the national federation, when it was their own unification under one umbrella that was seen as crucial to rebooting German football before 2006. It has got to the point where the 24 qualified nations may not even use Bundesliga training grounds. And yet, it’s still Germany. There’s still a talent like Jamal Musiala. It’s still so easy to get around. The country remains blessed with the kind of infrastructure that most other nations would dream of, so they could host a tournament just as easily. It will be hard for Uefa not to put on a show. This is precisely where there is also pressure on Uefa, however, to feed into the hint of growing dissatisfaction against Aleksander Ceferin. The governing body has recently found it difficult to get events right. While Euro 2020 was initially organised relatively smoothly, the final at Wembley was a near-disaster. The following year’s Champions League final in Paris was even worse, and everyone was fortunate there wasn’t loss of life. The chaos around this year’s showpiece in Istanbul, then, showed a lot of lessons hadn’t been learned. It summed up a sense that the European body, previously a model of that sort of technocratic competence, wasn’t properly anticipating obvious problems. This all comes amid growing fissures in the political infrastructure. There is a growing belief that Ceferin has been too self-satisfied since the victory over the Super League in April 2021. That crisis was precipitated by problems that came from financial disparity in European football, an issue that has got worse over the Slovenian’s seven years. The 2024 Champions League reforms are meanwhile commonly viewed as just institutionalising the Super League in another way. Ceferin is also being privately criticised by complacent reactions to huge issues like multi-club ownerships and the threat of the Saudi Pro League. It is known that the subject of whether the kingdom’s clubs would ever come into the Champions League was at least raised in informal circles near the top of Uefa. That prospect was rejected, over a fear of a LIV Golf situation. Saturday’s draw will bring all of the federation heads together, and a lot of private chats about all of this. Many are currently raising questions over whether Ceferin will pursue another term in 2027. The rules stipulate that any federation president can only serve three terms, and Ceferin came in halfway through one after the fall of Michel Platini. Other executives within European football are already talking about how it would be "bad governance" if he sought another term and tried to stay in power. If this seems a long way from the opening game in Munich on 14 June, it has influenced international football. The concentration of resources in pockets of western Europe has had an effect, as have Uefa’s policies on development. It is a slightly strange era in international football, where there is a huge middle class in terms of quality and not many truly elite sides. France and England are the obvious favourites, and will be the two teams everyone else wants to avoid. That landscape may change in the long months until the Euros start, and good sides can quickly develop. That was witnessed with the defending champions, Italy, in 2021. The current landscape is still what everyone travelling to Hamburg is surveying right now. As it is, a worst-case group for England would probably be Denmark, Netherlands and Italy. A best case might be Albania, Slovenia and a play-off winner. For Scotland - or potentially Wales after their play-offs - the hope will be to avoid France, Denmark and Italy but they might fancy Belgium and Albania. England should still get through regardless. Southgate has bigger ambitions. The main consequence of Saturday will be sorting logistics, as well as travel between games and their first-choice base in the Black Forest. Again, it is still Germany, though. That just comes with a few more complications than before. Read More When is the Euro 2024 draw and what are the pots? Anthony Gordon can make England statement by outshining Marcus Rashford England’s Euro 2024 squad: Who’s on the plane, who’s in contention and who has work to do? 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Marine’s 2021 FA Cup run was so far detached from reality that their manager, Neil Young, remembers every kick like a vivid dream. He can still see the last penalty of the shootout which shocked League Two Colchester United on their own patch in the first round, “one of my greatest memories in football”. He can still picture Niall Cummins’ dramatic 120th-minute winner against Havant & Waterlooville in the second round which sparked “bedlam,” even in an empty stadium in lockdown. That result was their ninth knockout win of the competition and it put Marine AFC, a volunteer-led club playing in the Northern Premier League Division One North West, into the hat for the third round with some of the biggest teams in the world. It was only the second time an eighth-tier side had ever reached that stage of the FA Cup. On the face of it, the third-round draw is a ludicrous enterprise. Here was a team made up of plumbers, teachers, factory workers and a car salesman, paid a total weekly wage of £750, with the possibility of being competitively matched against some of the best footballers on the planet. “When you get to the third round, let’s be honest, it’s likely that you’re not going to go any further,” Young tells the Independent. “You are hoping for one of the big teams. “I go back to when I was growing up, the third round was always the one you were waiting for. I was a Liverpool fan and you were always wondering who you were gonna get. Now I was looking at it from the other side.” The possibilities were remote. The chances of drawing one of the so-called big six was around nine per cent. The chances of drawing the team on top of the Premier League and the manager he most wanted to pit his wits against, Jose Mourinho? Only 1.6 per cent. But after such a rare run into the cup’s deepest waters, Marine were desperate to get lucky. The draw itself was made in a studio, but the BBC’s programme was hosted by Mark Chapman at Marine’s ground, immediately after their televised second-round win over Havant & Waterlooville. “It was outside, and it was absolutely bloody freezing,” remembers Young. The manager was stood with his captain, Cummins, and the BBC production team, watching the draw on what turned out to be a slightly delayed picture on a giant TV screen. He watched as Robbie Savage fished out No 58, Marine, followed by No 39, Tottenham Hotspur. “Once the ball got drawn out, we heard a massive cheer go up,” Young says. “We didn’t just hear it from our directors in the stand below us - our ground’s got houses on top of it and you could hear the cheering from the houses. I could actually hear the cheer before the name came up on the bottom of the screen. “It was a surreal moment. And as soon as that draw was made, the phone never stopped ringing.” Young was live on Sky Sports News 15 minutes later, and hopped between radio shows all night. It was relentless, and Young was forced to take a week off work – he works for a local train operator – to cope with the buildup. Liverpool invited him to watch Spurs at Anfield the week before the tie and offered up their footage of Spurs and detailed analytics. He had hoped for an away trip, but on reflection: “You’re thinking, away at Tottenham, for example, it could be a bloody cricket score with the size of the pitch and everything.” The game itself is another crystal clear memory. The gap between the two clubs was 161 places, the biggest in FA Cup history, but Mourinho took the game seriously and named a strong side. International stars like Dele Alli, Joe Hart, Toby Alderweireld, Lucas Moura and Gareth Bale all graced Marine’s Rossett Park. Before kick-off, Mourinho sought out Marine’s one Portuguese player, a reserve goalkeeper, and gifted him a signed Spurs shirt with his name printed on the back. “He also got me a shirt with my name on the back which he signed for me, which is framed in my house,” says Young. “He came out of his way before the game to talk with me, we spent half an hour on the pitch making general conversation. He was a really nice guy, humble, not what people see on the telly. He assumed we’d only played two or three games to get there and was amazed it was our 10th game, he could not believe it. “He said, ‘I hope you know if you beat us today, I’ll be back here tomorrow morning looking for a job’.” Spurs were too good, of course, winning 5-0. Yet Marine hit the woodwork at 0-0 and fans still ask Young what might have been had that shot found the net. “I tell them we would have lost 5-1 instead,” he laughs. Young has great respect and appreciation for the way Tottenham approached the tie. “It was freezing, there were no supporters, but they sent a real strong team and then they brought Bale on. We were chasing after them for most of the game but what an experience for our players. And it’s changed our football club.” Tottenham fans bought “virtual” away tickets to raise £300,000 for Marine, and Spurs later treated Marine’s players and staff to a trip to north London to watch their FA Cup third-round tie the following season. Marine’s old facilities essentially made it a part-time social club; now they have two restaurants open all day, every day, generating life-giving revenue for the club. So does the new 4G pitch which is used by local teams and schools. The average gate has jumped from around 200 before the Cup tie to around 1,300 now, and buses full of travelling supporters follow the team on the road. The magic of the FA Cup is a well-worn cliché but there is little else in sport quite like the third round, little that can replicate the sheer otherworldly possibility of that draw. That moment, stood in the bitter cold as cheers rang out from the houses and Tottenham Hotspur flashed up on the screen, will live with Young forever. “It was a special moment in my life. I played a bit myself non-league, and then I got a bad injury and took the decision to pack it in at a very early age and go into the management side. My career started on Sunday mornings at Birkenhead. Things progressed and for that to all come together, in the third-round draw of the FA Cup against Tottenham Hotspur, to be playing against a guy who’s won everything and one of the best that’s ever done it in Jose Mourinho… it was unbelievable.” Read More When is the FA Cup third round draw? What time is the Euro 2024 draw and what are the pots? Uefa announces changes to Women’s Champions League and second European competition When is the FA Cup third round draw? What time is the Euro 2024 draw and what are the pots? Uefa announces changes to Women’s Champions League and second European competition