Burton Albion - 0 Manchester Utd - 0: Nigel Clough used the word miracle. Beside him a thick-set guy in a navy-blue overcoat was wiping tears from his eyes. Al, the maintenance guy, had four corner flags in one hand, a soggy handkerchief in the other. A hundred and one flashbulbs went off. Burton will never forget the day Manchester United came to town and Alex Ferguson was subjected to the sort of experience that will haunt him long after he has given up football to play with the grandchildren.
Apologies to Nuneaton Borough, Tamworth, Leyton Orient and all the rest but whatever happens between now and May 13th the 2006 FA Cup will be remembered for Burton Albion. Granted it was not a true giantkilling, in the sense England's biggest club were not actually slain. Yet Burton certainly came close.
The people of this Staffordshire town will always wonder what might have been were it not for Phil Bardsley's two goal-line clearances and they will wince when they reflect on the referee Howard Webb's miserliness in not awarding a penalty for Gerard Pique's handball, deeming instead the teenager had first been fouled.
Fourteenth in the Conference, Burton played as though patronised by Ferguson's team selection and they did it all by the old Clough maxim, passed through the family tree, that if football were not meant to be played on the floor there would be grass in the sky. Even on the toffee-pudding playing surface they knocked the ball about as though playing on a bowling green. They dominated the first half and when United finally worked up a head of steam in the final half-hour the non-league players formed an impenetrable barrier in front of Saul Deeney's goal.
"I'm proud of them all," said Clough. "You can see what it means. They reckon a replay will be worth £500,000 and I think we fully deserved it. For a group of part-time lads to get a draw against Manchester United, it's staggering."
Perhaps Ferguson will regret his decision to leave out so many star names, just as he did when drawing against another Conference side, Exeter City, at this stage last year. United's manager gravely underestimated the challenge of a team 104 places below them in football's merit of order. He will have heard the chants of "Fergie, Fergie, sort it out" from the away fans and it may no longer suffice to blame a press vendetta for the scrutiny that will fall on his decision-making.
Why field a reserve team, incorporating Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's first start for 20 months, when the FA Cup is United's best hope of salvaging his first season under Malcolm Glazer's ownership? It is already galling for United's supporters that they are out of Europe and the title race. To be humiliated by a club who have been treading water in the Conference will reopen the debate about Ferguson's ability to re-establish Old Trafford as an HQ of hegemony.
Several hundred Mancunians stayed at the end to applaud Clough's heroes on their lap of honour but the conversations on the way back to Manchester will have centred on Ferguson's faltering reign. "It's disappointing," the manager acknowledged. "Looking on the bright side, we're still in the cup and that's the main thing. But I wasn't expecting a replay."
The recriminations are for another time because the true story yesterday was of the finest hour in Burton's modest history and a manager whose modus operandi can be gauged by the manner in which he tried to shrink away from his famous surname to divert the accolades towards his players. Beside Clough in the dugout was his nine-year-old son William, dressed in full Brewers regalia and carrying his school sandwich box. In between yelling at his players to "do your job" and "stay calm" the paternal Clough could be seen asking him if he had had his pack-up.
It was a scene that brought back memories of when a schoolboy Nigel, wearing a gap-tooth smile and a blue duffel coat, used to sit between Brian Clough and Peter Taylor in dugouts throughout Europe. Old Big 'Ead would certainly have liked the way the team he adopted in retirement set about their illustrious opponents. After 10 minutes their captain Darren Stride damaged his thigh in one challenge but, undeterred, he epitomised their team ethos, lasting to the very end.
Even when Ferguson brought on Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo the Premiership club had to wait until the first minute of stoppage-time before drawing any heroics from the Burton goalkeeper Deeney. Fortunately for the home side the chance did not fall to Rooney but Richie Jones, a teenage reserve thrust into Roy Keane's old role.
As for the replay, Clough said Burton did not "have a prayer". But he had said the same before this match too.
Guardian Service
