The Championship column February 28 2008
I keep hearing that the FA Cup isn't what it once was.
Possibly not, but just try telling that to the fans of Barnsley who, having achieved the little matter of dumping Liverpool out of the competition at Anfield, now look ahead next week to the visit of Chelsea to Oakwell for a quarter-final tie that Avram Grant's side cannot be relishing too much.
At Barnsley on Tuesday night, after watching his side draw 0-0 against Queens Park Rangers, manager Simon Davey opened his press conference by saying he wanted to say nothing about Chelsea or the FA Cup.
No wonder, because the 37-year-old admits his phone scarcely stopped ringing for five days after the historic victory and subsequent league results have left his team very much ensnared in the struggle against relegation.
A 1-0 defeat at Norwich preceded the QPR stalemate, so the question has to be raised as to whether or not Barnsley are suffering something of an FA Cup hangover. Davey says he will not tolerate that, but he is not alone in having to contend with a results backlash.
After going through to the quarter-finals, Cardiff were beaten by Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough, West Brom came back to earth after their 5-0 cup win at Coventry with a sobering home defeat at the hands of Phil Brown's Hull City and Sheffield United, prior to their FA Cup replay on Wednesday night against Middlesbrough, had only managed a draw against QPR at Loftus Road.
But it will be Barnsley who are in the media spotlight most of all because, with due apologies to devotees of the Chelsea cause, Grant's side is not the most popular in football.
At Wembley, in the Carling Cup final, it seemed most of the footballing nation was rooting for Spurs, and so it will be on quarter-final day when cloth caps will be donned, dee-dah accents adopted and the vast majority of armchair fans will he hoping Barnsley can pull off another improbable upset.
The problem for Davey is that this Saturday he has what would normally be the one of the biggest games of Barnsley's season, the local derby with Sheffield Wednesday at Oakwell. The ground will be sold out, and once again much is at stake with the Owls also struggling to escape the lower reaches of the Championship.
Luke Steele, the Barnsley goalkeeper on loan from West Brom, performed heroically against Liverpool and his acrobatics were rightly recognised when he was named as the FA Cup player of the fifth round. But the announcement of the award on Wednesday might have been great for the player, but his manager would probably have preferred not to have been given yet another slap on the back for cup achievement so close to a key Yorkshire derby.
Davey himself admits that he had never previously experienced anything like the media feeding frenzy that followed the Anfield win. But it is all part of the learning curve for a bright and ambitious young manager. He must be aware that it not only the players who need to keep their attention firmly on crucial league encounters, but also the gaffer himself.
Davey's worst possible scenario would be Barnsley continuing their cup run, but then losing their Championship status. Looking at their side, they would seem to have too many decent players and too much spirit for that eventuality, but stranger things have happened.
Barnsley's league form away from their homely Oakwell base is indifferent, so Saturday's game becomes all the more crucial with Wednesday in the bottom three, six points behind Barnsley but with two games in hand.
So the utterance of matters concerning Chelsea is banned for now at Oakwell, until after the weekend and after next Tuesday's match at Blackpool. Six points would very much ease the nervousness of players and supporters and let the Chelsea match be relished as the huge occasion it should be in the club's history.
Conversely, two defeats would leave the FA Cup looking like an unnecessary detraction in the greater scheme of things. Let's hope not.
John Rawling