FA Cup shocks for Manchester City and Chelsea show that money can't buy glory

The shock wave rolled around the world, consuming millionaire footballers, billionaire businessmen and sheiks who count their cash in trillions.

Manchester City, transformed into the world's richest club by the Abu Dhabi royal family, were humiliated at home by Nottingham Forest.

Chelsea, the bottomless pit into which Roman Abramovich has tossed £756million, could not even beat Southend at Stamford Bridge.

Money didn't matter. Egos were an embarrassment. Mice roared, peasants revolted, and hidden heroes emerged, blinking, into the spotlight.

This morning, the unfashionable and the great unwashed have a reason to believe.

They are united by that old Lotto legend: it could be you.

The FA Cup has become a symbol of football's fleeting democracy.

Portsmouth, the first holders outside the Big Four for 15 years, have taken the trophy into every school in their catchment area. Kids have been encouraged to dare to dream.

Clubs like Everton, Aston Villa and Fulham are doing likewise.

Itv and Setanta have paid £425million, over four years, to provide employment for second rate pundits and presenters.

Hardly a bargain, but at least they've not betrayed viewers like the BBC, who have temporarily swapped Match of the Day for third rate darts.

Let's examine the stories they've missed.

Mark Hughes, suddenly, has less job security than John Pemberton, Forest's caretaker manager. He's been promised a return to his day job, as Forest reserve team coach, at Lincoln on Wednesday when Billy Davies takes over.

Hughes must hope his Arab paymasters were too busy hosting the world tennis championship, won by Andy Murray, to count their loose change, his £100million transfer budget.

Luiz Felipe Scolari will discover that, no matter what he says, not everybody loves him.

Four wins in 12 matches makes him vulnerable to the whims of an owner who invested in football as fantasy, rather than a 1-1 draw against League One strugglers.

TheCup doesn't need PR pap from a so-called sports psychologist, recruited by sponsors to promote meaningless "research" that Cup upsets bridge the gap between the generations. It speaks for itself.

Eight Macclesfield fans stayed up all night to ensure the Football League's worst supported club were able to stage their narrow defeat against Everton.

More than 7,000 fans followed Barrow to Middlesbrough.

So what if only about 70 of them recognised Jason Walker, their scorer in an honourable 2-1 defeat?

Plymouth took 9,000 to the Emirates. This is football as a cross between a stag do, a school trip, and a fancy dress party. It's a reminder that greed and the grandeur of the PremierLeague is not the only game in town.

Stokehadideas above their station, made seven changes, and made overnight sensations of Micky Nelson and David Foley who will enter local legend as scorers of the goals which put Hartlepool in the fourth round for only the second time in 127 years.

Forest Green had lunch in the village pub, and then went out to lose the sort of seven goal thriller that lacked only Roy of the Rovers atcentre forward.

But Kettering and Torquay won through to the next round when, for another day at least, we can all suspend our sense of disbelief.

Enjoy.

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