Yesterday the part-time players of the Blue Square South Premier side Havant & Waterlooville, whose league games take place five divisions below the Premiership, went to Anfield and twice took the lead, going into half-time on equal terms at 2-2 with Liverpool's starting eleven, a side that took fifty million quid or more to assemble. The 'Reds' were shorn of a few first team regulars it's true, but the likes 'Stevie' Gerrard, Jammy Carragher and 70s porn star Dirk 'I'm Here To Fix The Fridge' Kuyt, had to be brought on in the second half to make the game safe.

I was at the newly reformed Farnborough F.C. while this was happening (Farnborough Town having been liquidated due to Graham Westley's cuntiness a few years back), watching a solid 1-0 win over Paulton Rovers who, despite what you may think, do actually exist. They aren't in fictional in any way. As news filtered through of Havant's 2-1 lead, the Farnborough faithful started singing their fellow non-leaguer's team name in tribute. After all, we knew many of their players well. Goalie Kevin Scriven played for us a couple of seasons ago, scorer Richard Pacquette had a brief sojourn at The Boro, left-wing dynamo Tony Taggart was a hero back in the Westley days and then there's Rocky Baptiste.

The Rock (real name: Jarzinho) showed the same deft touches, awareness and pace yesterday he had when scoring thirty goals a season for us, including the one at Arsenal a few years back. So now Rocky has scored against one Premier league side, played well against another, and is currently studying to live his post-football dream, being a London cabbie. I might have to start taking more taxis in future. Just for the anecdotes.

This is what makes me love non-league football, and it's why the F.A. Cup is the best footballing competition, nay finest sporting event, in the world, bar none. I think a framed photo of the Anfield scoreboard showing Liverpool 2-1 down to Havant & Waterlooville ought to sit on the dodgy American directors' wall, forming a backdrop to the next £350 million pound loan they secure from the banks in order to fool the Kop into thinking they've been generous with their own cash.

And what did 'Raffia' Benitez say to buck them up at half-time? Having 'his boys' in the dressing room, sitting there lucky to be on level terms? Something like: "Oi! Sammy Hyypier! I pay you 50k a week and you've been turned inside-out by a fucking binman! And Babel! 12.5 million quid my arse! You can't even score past a bleedin' builder! Idiots. I'm not even speaking to you, make up your own tactics for the second half. Go on, bugger off!"

Okay, so it was probably a bit more eloquent Spaniard, and a little less Ricky Tomlinson, but you get the idea.

Bentiez has no idea about the F.A. Cup anyway. He expected Havant to behave as most teams do when coming to Anfield – stay in their own half, play a 5-4-1 formation, maybe line eleven men up on the line and wait for Jon Aller Riiise to take potshots at their trembling bodies. But this was the biggest day in Havant's history, they had 6,000 fans up in Scouseland (about 10% of whom are regulars at home games, but I digress) and all the team had been dreaming about scoring a goal at Anfield. They played their normal game, took it to the opposition, and two of them actually did score. It probably should have been more, so fallible did they make the Scousers' makeshit defence appear.

In the end, of course, superior fitness told, along with the International class of Yosser 'Arafat' Benayoun, as well as home bias, the linesman allowing Crouchie's offside goal to stand. But Liverpool weren't the first side to underestimate non-league opposition in the F.A. Cup and they won't be the last. Havant didn't get to the fourth round by chance, they beat Swansea in the previous round who are sitting at the top of League One and will be in the Championship next season. H&W are a skilful passing side, even if, towards the end of the match, most of their players were more concerned with asking Gerrard if they could have his shirt than defending corners.

This is why non-league football is the best soccer experience; charm, friendliness and camaraderie. I pay seven quid to stand on the terraces at Farnborough and watch a game that's likely to have more incident than most matches at a higher level. We've scored over 80 goals so far this season, and the other week we played a side mainly consisting of men with mullets and beer bellies. You don't get that kind of entertainment at Premiership grounds; paying forty quid or more to sit in a cramped seat in a stadium that has all the atmosphere of Heath Ledger's funeral (and when will our society allow gay cowboys to live in peace, without persecution? R.I.P. Heath, may you live any lifestyle you choose up in heaven and lasso a homosexual angel for me). 

In addition to the above plus points, none of Farnborough's players are as bad as Titus Bramble.

Semi-professionals are men who never make it to football's highest echelon for whatever reason; bad luck, injury, not performing at the right times, so instead they build careers outside the sport to see them through life and provide for their families. But many have a similar level of ability to those who make their living from the game, only without an exaggerated sense of their own self-importance, ridiculous wage demands or rape allegations hanging over their heads. They play for the love of it, giving up evenings and weekends because of a drive that has little to do with money or fame, and that shines through when you watch non-league.

Also, we once had a player called 'Fiston Manuella'.

Al.

More sporting mishaps HERE.