A FA Cup Record?

[AlonzoDrake]

This is the 55th year of devotion to my home town club, and sadly we've never had a really good FA Cup run in that time -- so to draw Oldham on Monday was a sickener. It could be a big banana skin, but it does give us a good chance to get to Round 5 for the first time in 64 years. In February, 1956 we lost to Spurs 1-0 in front of a bumper Belle Vue gate of 30,000 plus -- but after that the cupboard has been pretty bare.

As a third and fourth tier after from 1958, we rarely made it to round 3. Nevertheless, I do have some great FA Cup memories since 1963. My first vivid cup memory is of a round 3 home tie in 1965 during King Alick's second spell. It was so great as a kid to see 20,000 in Belle Vue v tier 2 Huddersfield Town that afternoon, even though we lost 1-0. In a rare round 4 appearance we were very unluckily beaten 2-1 at tier 2 Norwich in 1982. And of course there were those two FA Cup visits to Anfield in 1969 and 1974 and the one to Goodison Park in 1985. We performed so admirably in all five ties, and we did have great win in round 3 in 1985 over First Division QPR.

But this Oldham frustration brings back bad memories of when we were knocked out of the Cup in three consecutive years by the same team!

1. Nov. 1976, a round one replay at Shrewsbury -- lost 1-0
2  Nov, 1977, a round one home tie v Shrewsbury -- lost 1-0
3. Nov 1978,  a round two home time v Shrewsbury -- lost 3-0

In each of those years we were a top half D4 club, and the Shrews were a top half D3 club.

I have often wondered whether this is a FA Cup record -- has any club ever drawn the same team in three consecutive FA Cup seasons?!

Is it feasible to research this, TRB and Dutch Uncle?

[Dutch Uncle]

The classic example always quoted refers to those awfully nice people in Leeds who were drawn at Home to Cardiff in the third round for three consecutive seasons - 1955-56, 1956-57, and 1957-58. The brilliant part was that the result was exactly the same in each match - a 2-1 win for Cardiff!

That actually beats Rovers record because we were actually drawn against Huddersfield in Rnd 1,and who we beat 2-1, between the second and third Shrewsbury draws.

[Herbert Anchovy]

Good memories Alonzo. I was at the Norwich game and thought we were extremely unlucky. Everton was just incredible, with 10k Donny fans there. Billy Bremner took a gamble in playing Ian Snodin as a sweeper in that match that didn’t really pay off.

[BillyStubbsTears]

79 other teams in R1. 39 others in R2. So it's a 1/3081 chance. A bit worse than that as some teams will promoted to Tier 2 or drop out of the league so you'd have to factor that in too but it's outside my skill set.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Also, it's even worse than that because of R2 being  involved. So the side you drew in the first 2 years might not make it to R2.

Ignoring all that, the chance of drawing a SPECIFIC side in R1/R1/R2 in three years is 1/(79*79*39) or 1/243000

[IDM]

It will be worse than that too, as from one year to the next the 32 non league teams in R1 will be different..

[Donnywolf]

A minor point AD but I have found it was Rovers 0 - Spurs 2

Seen it in 2 places and even posted it on here recently.

Private joke - I bet you had 1-2 

[adamtherover]

What's bizarre is that the 5 years we had in the championship, we were rubbish at fa cup games.....

[Surrey Rover]

 Hi Alonzo
The replay in the first of those meetings ended in a 4-3 defeat at Gay Meadow after Ian Miller had given us an early lead. In fact we also led in the home fixture three days earlier and would have deservedly won had it not been for Brian Taylor gifting Shrewsbury their second goal with a mis-directed headed backpass. That fixture was the first FA Cup fixture I’d ever attended so I remember it well.

The third of those FA Cup meetings with Shrewsbury came amidst a poor season which ended in a bottom four finish. We were struggling at the wrong end of division four on that cold December afternoon and it was Billy Bremners second home game in charge having replaced Stan Anderson a couple of weeks earlier.

[Bristol Red Rover]

What is a club record is how many we've scored in the FA Cup this season - 14.

Previous bests were in 46/47 and 37/38 we got 11 goals. Jack Kirkaldie got 4 in 46/47 and Mick Killourhy got 5 in 37/38.

However, including qualifying rounds, in 1910/11 we got 14 (William Jex 5), and 1898/99 15 goals (Dutch Gladwin 7, Billy Linward 5).

[Donnywolf]

What's bizarre is that the 5 years we had in the championship, we were rubbish at fa cup games.....

.. well we made Round Three every Season