Danny looks to get Cats Motoring in the FA Cup
Jan 24 2009 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal
DANNY Collins is in his fifth year of playing for one of the biggest clubs in the country, but his proudest FA Cup achievement is still a penalty shoot-out win with Vauxhall Motors. Stuart Rayner reports.
MORE than six years on, November 26, 2002 still stands as the highlight of Danny Collins’ FA Cup career. The only real highlight.
Then, he was a 22-year-old Chester City centre-back on loan at UniBond League Vauxhall Motors. For a player who would go on to represent Wales, the move must have seemed like a necessary step out of the limelight.
Collins can hardly have joined the recent addition to the old Northern Premier League with expectations of glamour. But he became part of an FA Cup giant-killing which, while not exactly world-renowned, will live long in Ellesmere Port memories.
Motors held former Premier League side Queens Park Rangers to a 0-0 draw at Rivacre Road and a 1-1 draw at Loftus Road before winning the first-round tie 4-3 on penalties.
It has been downhill ever since, at least in the world’s most famous cup competition. Collins may have gone on to play in the Premier League, with Sunderland, and in international football, but he has never made it into the fifth round of the FA Cup. He has another chance at home to Blackburn Rovers today, but with his patched-up side having more than one eye on important league games at Fulham and Newcastle United this week, the odds are slimmer.
“It’s one of the biggest regrets of my time at Sunderland,” Collins admits. “Since I’ve been here, we haven’t done very well in any of the cups. The season before I got here (2004-05), they got to the semi-final against Millwall, but since then, we haven’t really threatened to do anything at all.
“I know what a good experience that Millwall game was, and I’d love to experience playing in a semi-final or a final with Sunderland. I’m pretty sure it would be amazing. It would be nice to rekindle some of the emotion that went with that Millwall game this season.
“I’ve been at Sunderland more than four years now, but my best FA Cup run is still with Vauxhall Motors. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s true.
“We had to play five or six rounds just to get the first round – if I won six FA Cup games in a season with Sunderland, we’d have won the competition. We made it to the first round proper, and played against QPR, who were the equivalent of a League One side. We were the league below the Conference and nobody really gave us much of a chance.
“We drew 0-0 at home, then went to Loftus Road, drew 1-1 and beat them on penalties. It was a great night, and the journey back from London was even better! That’s what the FA Cup’s all about, stories like that.
“I was going to be the next penalty-taker, but I didn’t have to take one because QPR missed a couple and we won 4-3.”
Recent FA Cup history suggests a trip to Wembley (where the semi-finals will also be held this year) should not be beyond Sunderland. Watford, Cardiff , Southampton, West Brom, Sheffield United, Wycombe and Barnsley are some of the less-than-glamorous clubs to have made it to the last four since the turn of the millennium, with Portsmouth lifting the trophy last May.
“It doesn’t seem to be a closed shop any more,” Collins reflects. “Cardiff got to the final last year, so it’s all about performing well on the day and getting on a bit of a roll.
“You just have to creep through the early rounds. If you do, all of a sudden you pop up and think, ‘We’re in the quarter-finals here’. From there, you take it a bit more seriously because you know what’s just around the corner.”
Both Sunderland’s games in this season’s competition have been at home to Premier League opposition – no bad thing, says Collins.
“The matches don’t really feel like cup games,” he says. “But I think sometimes that’s a good thing.
“We’ve played Blackburn three times already this season and it’s been close in all the games. But we’re pretty confident.”
