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January 5, 2021

2020-21 FA Cup, 3rd Round: Location-map, with fixtures; with attendances from the previous season./+ Illustration for Marine AFC: The second-ever 8th-level club to advance to the FA Cup 3rd Round.

Filed under: 2020-21 FA Cup — admin @ 9:36 pm

2020-21_fa-cup_3rd-round_map_w-fixtures_post_d_.gif
2020-21 FA Cup, 3rd Round: location-map, with fixtures; with attendances from the previous season



By Bill Turianski on the 5th of January 2021; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.
Links…
-The competition…FA Cup (en.wikipedia.org).
-BBC’s page on the competition…bbc.com/fa-cup.

Four non-League teams have qualified this season for the FA Cup 3rd Round…Boreham Wood (5th division), Chorley (5th division), Marine (8th level), Stockport County (5th division). That’s up from 2 non-League teams, as it was in each of the previous two seasons. In 2017-18, actually, zero non-League teams qualified for the 3rd round. The record number of non-League teams qualifying for the 3rd round is 8 teams, which was achieved in 2008-09 (those 8 teams were…Barrow, Blyth Spartans, Eastwood Town, Forest Green Rovers, Histon, Kettering Town, Kidderminster Harriers, Torquay United).

It has been 42 years now, since the 5th division was established in 1979-80 (as the Alliance Premier League/now called the National League). This lead to the re-organization of English non-League football, into the English football pyramid, with a whole set of feeder-leagues sending promoted sides up towards the 5th tier, and of course, to the Football League starting at the 4th tier. (Automatic promotion from the 5th tier to the 4th division of the Football League was finally instituted 7 years later, in 1986-87.) And in that time (42 seasons), the average number of teams from non-League football that have made it into the FA Cup 3rd Round has been between 3.1 and 3.4 teams per season.

Below is a chart I put together, with figures from FA Cup Factfile {at twitter.com/[@FACupFactfile]}. The bar-graph chart shows the total number of non-League clubs which have qualified for the 3rd Round of the FA Cup, each season since 1979-80.
fa-cup_3rd-round_number-of-teams_from-non-league_that-qualified_graph_1980-2021_42-seasons_b_.gif
{Data from from FA Cup Factfile at twitter.com/[@FACupFactfile].}



    Marine AFC: Marine becomes only the second-ever 8th-level club to advance to the FA Cup 3rd Round…

Marine AFC, who play in the 8th-level Northern Premier League Division One North West, are located in Crosby, Merseyside (which is 6 miles (10 km) north of Liverpool). The club was formed in 1894 by a group of local businessmen and former college students. Marine AFC takes its name from the Marine Hotel on the River Mersey sea front at Waterloo, 7 miles to the north of Liverpool city centre, where club founders met. The club’s colors are White-and-Black, but the team are currently playing in Pale-Gold-and-Black halves. The club’s tiny Rossett Park has capacity of 3,145 (with only 389 seated). Marine have played at Rossett Park since 1903. Rossett Park is bordered by row housing on all 4 sides, with houses’ back gardens looking directly onto the pitch on one of the long sides. On that side, the houses’ address-numbers are posted on the tall nets that separate the back gardens from the playing field. This is so because when a game ball inevitably flies into a back garden, the player sent to retrieve the ball knows which house to go to, to get the ball back {see this photo}. The other long side features only a very thin uncovered terracing that is two just two-persons-deep. The Main Stand/clubhouse sits behind one of the goals, and is the only seated area in the ground.

Prior to the pandemic, Marine were averaging 448 per game, which is pretty decent for an 8th-tier side, and that figure was second-best in their league, at about 150 above the median figure {source: nonleaguematters.co.uk}.

In 1979-80, Marine joined the Northern Premier League (which was back then a 6th-level league, and which is today a 7th-level league). Marine were a Northern Premier League club for 40 seasons (1979-80 to 2018-19). Marine had a heyday in the mid-1990s. It was during this era that Marine first reached the FA Cup 3rd round – in 1993-94. Then Marine won the league title in back-to-back seasons, but both times they were denied promotion to the Conference (the 5th division), due to their ground being insufficient (too small). This happened in 1993-94 and in 1994-95. (Rossett Park cannot be expanded, because of the housing that fully borders the ground.) The next 23 seasons saw Marine finish in the lower half of the Northern Premier table 12 times; their best finish in this time period was in 3rd place in 2005-06 {source: fchd.info/MARINE}. Their four decades-long spell in the Northern Premier came to an end in 2018-19.

In September 2018, when Marine were stuck near the bottom of the table, former Chester FC manager Neil Young was hired as Marine’s new manager {see photo and captions below}. At the close of 2018-19, Marine were relegated to the Northern PL D-1 North West; Neil Young stayed on as manager. In 2019-20, now in the 8th tier, Marine were doing well, and were in 3rd place in mid-March when the season was stopped due to the coronavirus pandemic. Currently [5 Jan 2021], Marine are in 6th place, 7 points off first place, with a couple games in hand.

Marine are only the second 8th-level club to have qualified for the FA Cup 3rd Round.
(The 8th level was instituted in 2004-05 {see this}. The first 8th-tier club to qualify for the FA Cup 3rd Round was Chasetown FC, of Staffordshire, in 2007-08.)

Marine won 5 matches, to advance to the 1st Round…
•Marine beat Barnoldswick Town (9th level), in the Preliminary Round.
•Marine beat Frickley Athletic (8th level), away, in the 1st QR.
•Marine beat Runcorn Linnets (8th level), away, on penalties, in the 2nd QR.
•Marine beat Nantwich Town (7th level), in the 3QR.
•Marine beat Chester (6th level), away, in the 4th QR.

•In the FA Cup 1st Round, in early November 2020, Marine beat a club 4 League-levels and 90 league-places above them: Colchester United, of League Two.
(Marine beat them 1-1/aet/5-4 on penalties.) {You can see an illustration I made for that, here.}

•Then in the 2nd Round, in late November 2020, Marine beat a club 2 league-levels and 43 league-places above them: Havant & Waterlooville, of the National League South.
(Marine beat them 1-0, scoring in the 120th minute of aet; see photos, screenshots, and captions below.) The goal that sent Marine into the lofty reaches of the FA Cup 3rd Round was scored by 33-year-old team captain Niall Cummins. In the 120th minute, MF James Barrigan sent a free kick towards the box. The free kick arced across the goal-mouth, bouncing near the right goal post. There the ball was headed back towards the goal-mouth by DF Anthony Miley. The ball reached near the left post, where FW Niall Cummins dived low, to volley the ball into the net. Cummins later admitted that he dove blind towards the ball, and it hit his back, then went into the net. {Here is the goal and the celebration afterwards (from twitter.com/[@DomerSaverage]).} {Here is a more visible replay of the goal [you can see the ball does go off of Cummins' back to score], from bbc.com/sport.} In celebration, some of the fans watching from the neighboring houses’ back gardens almost fell off the fences and trees they were perched on. Then, after the on-pitch celebrations, the squad sent the goalkeeper Bayleigh Passant out ’round to the corner store, to buy some lager to celebrate the win {see this tweet, from twitter.com/[@TheAnfieldWrap]}. {Here are some more shots from Rossett Park that evening, from twitter.com/[@mdarlington].}



-Here is an nice article, from the Liverpool Echo, on Marine’s 2nd round win, Marine given day of dreams as financial figures show power of FA Cup (by Sam Carroll on 29 November 2020, at liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport).

-Here is the match report at Marine AFC official site, Match Report: Marine 1-0 Havant & Waterlooville (AET) (from marinefc.com).


Now, for the 3rd round, Marine have been drawn to play Premier League giants Tottenham Hotspur, at Rossett Park in Crosby, Merseyside. It will be the biggest mismatch in FA Cup history: the two clubs are 7 League-levels and 161-League-places apart. The match will be at 5 pm (12 pm ET), on Sunday the 10th of January. The match will be televised on the BBC in the UK.

Below: Marine AFC: the second-ever 8th-tier club to make it to the FA Cup 3rd Round…
marine-afc_2020-21-fa-cup-2nd-round_win-over-havant-and-waterlooville_rossett-park_neil-young_niall-cummins_t_.gif
Photo and Image credits above – Photo of Marine’s home ground, Rossett Park, from liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport. Neil Young (Marine AFC manager), photo from marinefc.com. Main Stand at Rossett Park, photo by the Wycombe Wanderer at footygrounds.blogspot.com/2015/10/marine-rossett-park. Teams lined up at centre-circle before match, photo by Paul Greenwood/Rex via footballfrenzied.com. Screenshots (2) of Marine’s winning goal in the 120th minute, from video uploaded by The Emirates FA Cup at youtube.com. Screenshot of Niall Cummins celebrating the goal, from video uploaded by hawksfconline at youtube.com. Niall Cummins celebrates, photo by Kevin Warburton/A Moment in Sport/ProSports/Rex/Shutterstock via theguardian.com/football. Marine players celebrate with champagne at the centre-circle, photo by Paul Greenwood/Rex via dailymail.co.uk/sport/football.



___
Sources…
Thanks to all, at the links below…
-Blank map of English Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan Counties, by Nilfanion, at File:English metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties 2010.svg (commons.wikimedia.org).
-Blank relief map of Greater London, by Nilfanion (using UK Ordnance Survey data), at File:Greater London UK relief location map.jpg.
-Blank relief map of Greater Manchester, by Nilfanion (using Ordnance Survey data), at File:Greater Manchester UK relief location map.jpg.
-Fixtures list: screenshot from bbc.com/fa-cup.
-Data for graph, from FA Cup Factfile.
Attendance figures…
-European-Football-Statistics.co.uk (2019-20 average attendances for the Premier League [1st division] and the Football League [2nd, 3rd, and 4th divisions].)
-nonleaguematters.co.uk. (2019-20 average attendances for all non-League clubs on the map, from the 5th division to the 8th division.)

November 25, 2020

2020-21 FA Cup, 2nd Round: location-map, with fixtures; with attendances from the previous season./+ Illustration for Marine AFC, who had the biggest upset in the 1st Round (8th-level side Marine beats 4th-level side Colchester United [90 league places and 4 league-levels difference].)

Filed under: 2020-21 FA Cup — admin @ 10:00 pm

http://billsportsmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2020-21_fa-cup_2nd-round_map_w-fixtures_post_d_.gif
2020-21 FA Cup, 2nd Round: location-map, with fixtures; with attendances from the previous season



By Bill Turianski on the 25th of November 2020; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.
Links…
-The competition…FA Cup (en.wikipedia.org).
-BBC’s page on the competition…bbc.com/fa-cup.

FA Cup Second Round matches are set for Friday the 27th through Monday the 30th of November.
But before that, there is one 1st round match still to be played: Barrow AFC versus AFC Wimbledon, on Thursday the 26th of November. (That match, which had been scheduled for the 7th of November, had been postponed due to several AFC Wimbledon players being tested positive for COVID-19.) I will adjust the map page accordingly, following the outcome of that match.

    The biggest Cup-upset in 2020-21 FA Cup 1st Round…
    Marine AFC (8th level) beats Colchester United (4th division)…

Marine are from Crosby in Merseyside, 6 miles (by road) north of Liverpool. Marine are an 8th-level club playing in the Northern Premier League Division One North West. On Saturday the 7th of November, Marine traveled down to Essex to face 4th-division side Colchester United. In the 22nd minute, Marine DF Anthony Miley scored, on a rebound off the post from a free kick {see photos and captions below}. In the 64th minute, Colchester equalised with a goal from their captain, MF Harry Pell. At the final whistle, the match remained at 1-1. So it went to aet, and after that, it went to penalties. All 5 Marine players converted their penalty shots {see them below}. And so Marine AFC beat a club 4 League-levels and 90 League-places above them. In the Second Round, Marine have been drawn to play versus 6th-tier side Havant & Waterlooville, at their Rossett Park in Crosby. That match will be the late game on Sunday the 29th, and it will be televised. {Televised matches.}
marine-afc_2020-21-fa-cup-1st-round_win-over-colchester-utd_rossett-park_neil-young_t_.gif
Photo and Image credits above – Photo of Marine’s home ground, Rossett Park, from liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport. Neil Young (Marine AFC manager), photo from marinefc.com. Modified badge of Marin AFC (old-gold background), from marinefc.com/video. Screenshot of Anthony Miley goal, from video uploaded by The Emirates FA Cup at youtube.com. Photo of Marine players congratulating Anthony Miley after his goal in FA Cup, photo unattributed at bbc.com/sport. Screenshot of Michael Howard scoring the winning penalty kick, from video uploaded by The Emirates FA Cup at youtube.com. Photo of Michael Howard scoring winning penalty kick, by Ray Lawrence/TGS Photo/Rex via dailymail.co.uk. Marine players celebrate after penalty shootout win over Colchester, photo from bbc.com/sport/live/football. Anthony Miley, photo frommarinefc.com. Momodou Touray, photo from clwbpeldroed.org/2019/09/03/momodou-touray-barry-town-cymru-premier. Adam Hughes, photo from Marine FC via theanglingrev.com. Neil Kengnie, photo by Susan Nugent at twitter.com/[@SusanNugent2]. David Raven, photo by Susan Nugent at twitter.com/[@SusanNugent2]. Michael Howard, photo from marinefc.com.


___
Sources…
Thanks to all, at the links below…
-Blank map of English Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan Counties, by Nilfanion, at File:English metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties 2010.svg (commons.wikimedia.org).
-Blank relief map of Greater London, by Nilfanion (using UK Ordnance Survey data), at File:Greater London UK relief location map.jpg.
-Blank relief map of Greater Manchester, by Nilfanion (using Ordnance Survey data), at File:Greater Manchester UK relief location map.jpg.
-Fixtures list: screenshot from bbc.com/fa-cup.
Attendance figures…
-European-Football-Statistics.co.uk (2019-20 average attendances for the 3rd and 4th division.)
-nonleaguematters.co.uk. (2019-20 average attendances for all non-League clubs on the map, from the 5th division to the 8th division.)

October 31, 2020

2020-21 FA Cup, 1st Round: location-map, with fixtures; with attendances from the previous season./+ Illustrations for the 3 clubs which are making their FA Cup 1st Round debuts…Cray Valley (PM) FC, King’s Lynn Town FC, South Shields FC (III).

Filed under: 2020-21 FA Cup — admin @ 6:54 pm

2020-21_fa-cup_1st-round_map_w-fixtures_post_f_.gif
2020-21 FA Cup: location-map, with fixtures; with attendances from the previous season



By Bill Turianski on 31 October 2020; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.
Links…
-The competition…FA Cup (en.wikipedia.org).
-BBC’s page on the competition…bbc.com/fa-cup.

First Round matches are set for Friday the 6th through Monday the 9th of November.
The opening match on Friday the 6th will feature the lowest-placed club still alive in the competition, 9th-level side Skelmersdale United of Lancashire. Skelmersdale play in the North West Counties League, and are the first NWCL club to reach the First Round in 23 years (since 1997). Skelmersdale will travel to North Yorkshire to play Harrogate Town (who are a 4th-division side newly promoted to the Football League for the first time). This match will be televised {televised matches, here}.

The map page has a new template…the map now features only England & Wales (I have cropped out Scotland). I did this to give the map-area more space.

And I sure was glad I did make the map larger, when I saw the results of the Fourth Qualifying Round. Because there are two examples of clubs qualifying for this year’s FA Cup 1st Round that are located less than 3 miles apart…
•Two clubs have qualified from Canvey Island, on the north shore of the Thames Estuary in Essex. Both Concord Rangers FC (a 6th-tier club in the National League South) and Canvey Island FC (an 8th-level club in the Isthmian League North) have qualified for the 1st Round. As near as I could ascertain, these two clubs’ grounds are around 1.7 miles (or 2.8 km) apart.
•And 36 miles west of that, on the south side of the River Thames, two clubs from the Borough of Greenwich in South East London, have qualified for the 1st Round. One of them you would certainly have heard of: League One/3rd-division side Charlton Athletic FC. The other club you might very likely never have heard of: Cray Valley Paper Mills FC (an 8th-level side in the Isthmian South-East). As near as I could ascertain, these two clubs’ grounds are around 2.4 miles (or 3.9 km) apart.
(Note: the two clubs from Oxford that have qualified for the 1st Round – 6th-tier side Oxford City (in the north-east of Oxford) and League One/3rd-division side Oxford United (in the south-east of Oxford) are located about 4.1 miles (6.6 km) apart.)

This is Cray Valley’s first-ever appearance in the FA Cup 1st Round, so I put together an illustration for them below, along with illustrations for this season’s other two 1st-Round first-timers: King’s Lynn Town FC (a 5th-division side) and South Shields FC (a 7th-tier side). On Sunday the 8th of November, Cray Valley will travel to Hampshire to face 6th-tier side Havant & Waterlooville (at 12:45 GMT).

    The 3 clubs making their first appearance in the FA Cup First Round…Cray Valley Paper Mills, King’s Lynn Town, South Shields.

Cray Valley (PM) FC – FA Cup 1st Round debut in 2020-21, for the 101-year-old club…
cray-valley-pm_badgers-sports-ground_eltham-greenwich-se-london_fa-cup-1st-round-debut2020_m_.gif
Photo an Image credits above – Nash’s Cray Valley Paper Mills, aerial photo (circa 1930s) unattributed at cvths.wordpress.com/2014/05/24/nashs-paper-mill-war-diary. Main Stand, photo by the Wycombe Wanderer at footygrounds.blogspot.com. Cray Valley (PM) manager Kevin Watson, photo from pitchero.com/clubs/crayvalleypmfc. Ade Yussef celebrates his brace with teammates and fans, photo by Dave Cumberbatch at crayvalleypmfc.com. Francis Babalola after scoring the winner versus Maidenhead United, photo by Dave Cumberbatch via 853.london. Cray Valley players run to celebrate with the few supporters allowed into the ground, photo by Dave Cumberbatch via kentonline.co.uk.




King’s Lynn Town FC – FA Cup 1st Round debut in 2020-21, for the 10-year-old phoenix-club…
kings-lynn-town-fc_the-walks_norfolk_fa-cup-1st-round-debut2020_r_.gif
Photo and Image credits above – Aerial shot [satellite image], screenshot from bing.com/maps. Main Stand, photo by Owen Pavey at footballgroundguide.com/king-lynn-town-the-walks. Standing crowd in front of fully-occupied Main Stand [photo circa August 2019], photo by Ian Burt at edp24.co.uk/sport/kings-lynn-town Ian Culverhouse, photo by Geoff Moore at edp24.co.uk/sport. Adam Marriott, photo from lynnnews.co.uk/sport.




South Shields FC (III) – FA Cup 1st Round debut in 2020-21, for the 46-year-old phoenix-club…
south-shields-fc-iii_1st-cloud-arena-aka-mariners-park_south-shields_tyne-and-wear_fa-cup-1st-round-debut2020_k_.gif
Photo an Image credits above – view of South Shields, photo by David Dixon at geograph.org.uk. Aerial image of Mariners Park from bing.com/maps/[birds-eye view]. Crowd at Mariners Park circa 2019, three-deep in the standing, with Clock Stand in background, photo from southshieldsfc.co.uk. Darius Osei scores in 4th QR, photo by Ken Wilson at flickr.com/southshieldfcimages. Robert Briggs doubles the lead in 4th QR, screenshot from video uploaded by South Shields FC at youtube.com. Post-match, 4th QR: Dual-managers Lee Picton and Graham Fenton celebrate with players and staff after the win, screenshot from video uploaded by South Shields FC at youtube.com.

___
Sources…
Thanks to all, at the links below…
-Blank map of English Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan Counties, by Nilfanion, at File:English metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties 2010.svg (commons.wikimedia.org).
-Blank relief map of Greater London, by Nilfanion (using UK Ordnance Survey data), at File:Greater London UK relief location map.jpg.
-Blank relief map of Greater Manchester, by Nilfanion (using Ordnance Survey data), at File:Greater Manchester UK relief location map.jpg.
-Fixtures list: screenshot from bbc.com/fa-cup.
Attendance figures…
-European-Football-Statistics.co.uk (2019-20 average attendances for the 3rd and 4th division.)
-nonleaguematters.co.uk. (2019-20 average attendances for all non-League clubs on the map, from the 5th division to the 9th division.)
-Thanks to Dave Cumberbatch at crayvalleypmfc.com/photos, for the 3 photos.
-Thanks to Cray Valley (PM) FC, for retweeting my tweet; twitter.com/[@CrayValleyPM].

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