The 2005 FA Cup Final has two distinctions.
It was the first to be settled by a penalty shootout.
But it was also watched by a staggeringly large audience.
Across the world, 484m people tuned in to see Jens Lehmann save from Paul Scholes and
then, with the decisive kick, Patrick Vieira sweep his penalty home to win the cup for
Arsenal.
It was a heavyweight clash contested by footballing royalty.
But it was a game watched by people from everywhere, from all walks of life.
And that kind of appeal comes not only from the competition’s rich history, but also
the princes and paupers behind its great tales, and its harmonies of triumph and tragedy.
Wimbledon remain an underdog for the ages.
New to the professional leagues in 1977, it would take their band of roguish, unfancied
and underrated players just 11 years to reach an FA Cup Final.
And they didn’t just reach an FA Cup Final.
The won one.
Dave Beasant saved John Aldridge’s penalty.
Lawrie Sanchez headed in Dennis Wise’s free-kick.
And – by a goal to nil – Wimbledon beat Liverpool.
The Crazy Gang defeated the Culture Club.
In the FA Cup, everyone has a puncher’s chance.
In 2015, Bradford City landed a blow heard around the world.
They were 6th in League One when they travelled to face Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and, within
38 minutes, they were two goals down and heading out at the Fourth Round.
They’d storm back, though, scoring four answered goals against Jose Mourinho’s defence,
dumping the Premier League leaders out and inflicting upon them their first home defeat
of the season.
In 2017, the National League’s Lincoln City put even more noses out of joint.
They were the fifth level of English football, and they beat Altrincham from the league below,
Oldham from the division above, and then Ipswich Town from the Championship before – amazingly
– finding an 89th minute-winner to knock out Premier League Burnley, becoming the first
non-league side in 103 years to reach the quarter-final.
The cup belongs to the underdogs.
To the unknown teams and to the unheard of players.
Sometimes, it’s to those who have long been forgotten about.
Mickey Thomas knew what the summit of the game looked like and he’d been a wonderful
footballer.
He’d played for Manchester United, Everton and Chelsea during his prime.
But by 1992 and at the age of 37, he was back at hometown club Wrexham, all the way down
in the Fourth Division, when mighty Arsenal were in town.
And the 5ft6 Thomas had just enough magic left in his boots for the occasion, equalising
with a thunderous free-kick past David Seaman and leading a team of youthful waifs and strays
to a stunning 2-1 win.
By contrast, part-time player, part-time carpenter Ronnie Radford’s had a prime that was easy
to miss, but nobody would ever forget him after a cold February day in 1972, when Newcastle
United travelled to Hereford’s Edgar Street for a third-round replay.
On a swamp of the pitch, Newcastle took a late lead.
But, with five minutes left, Radford’s smashed the Southern League side level, finding the
top-corner from 35 yards away.
Hereford would eventually win the tie.
Radford would win that year’s Goal of the Season.
And at the final whistle, for the third time that day, jubilant Hereford fans spilled out
onto the pitch, submerging their players under a sea of bell-bottomed trousers and 1970s
facial hair.
Mutton chops and moustaches were nothing new for the cup.
In fact, they were part of its original history.
In 1879, the Old Etonians would win the first of their two cups, defeating Clapham Rovers
1-0.
They would finish runners-up in the tournament four times, but would win again in 1882 and,
as in ’79, did so under the captaincy of the eleventh Lord Kinnaird, who would later
serve as president of the Football Association for 33 years.
As a player, Kinnaird would win the competition five times in total, two with the Old Etonians
and three with the Wanderers club, and that record would stand until it was broken by
Chelsea’s Ashley Cole.
Stan Mortensen’s record may never be broken; he scored a hat-trick in the 1953 final and
nobody has done so since.
In 2018, the ball he scored those three goals with was sold at auction.
It had been raffled in 1989 at a benefit dinner to Mortensen and then led a strange life over
the next 20 years.
The winner of the raffle gave the ball as a gift to her brother, who – in turn – offered
it in gratitude to an electrician who came out to fix a fault on Christmas Day.
It would pass between the electrician and a close friend, and then it would be handed
down from father to a son before – finally – fetching over £5,000 at auction.
It was a precious item from one of the most famous matches in the sport’s history.
It wasn’t the most valuable, though.
The boots worn by Stanley Matthews in that same game commanded £38,000.
And Matthews’ winners medal – the one he’d promised his father he’d win before
he died – would be sold for £240,000 in 2014.
Sometimes, though, the worth of what happens on Cup Final day can’t be measured.
In 1958, ravaged by the tragedy of the Munich Air Disaster, Manchester United somehow made
it to Wembley.
They’d been there a year before, losing 1-0 to Aston Villa, but six members of that
side had lost their lives in February 1958, eighth United players in total, and their
manager, Matt Busby, was still recovering from his injuries.
But the story didn’t end as it was supposed to.
A Bolton side led by Nat Lofthouse would win 2-0, overcoming a team containing four players
who had survived the crash just three months earlier.
In 1989, however, the FA Cup Final would provide a city with respite from a tragedy.
The Hillsborough disaster, which occurred during an FA Cup semi-final with Nottingham
Forest, would ultimately claim the lives of 96 Liverpool fans.
In the weeks following, the Liverpool players would not only navigate their remaining fixtures
and win the rearranged semi-final, they would attend many of the funerals.
Manager Kenny Dalglish even attended four in one day.
Goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar, who had been the closest player as the tragedy develop,
even considered retirement in the aftermath.
But on 20th May 1989, six weeks after Hillsborough, Dalglish, Grobbelaar and the rest of the Liverpool
players walked out to face Everton in front of nearly 83,000 people.
It was the Merseyside Final, played out in front of two halves of the same grieving community.
Before kick-off, Gerry Marsden led both ends of the ground in a rendition of You’ll Never
Walk Alone, in one of the most touching moments Wembley ever witnessed.
And then Liverpool won 3-2 after extra time, as the sun shone down.