Jones the Actor, FA Cup & the Brady Bunch

VINNIE

These pictures show Vinny Jones getting friendly with England's enfant terrible Paul Gasgoine. No doubt "Gazza" was trying to be a smart-arse and Vinny was having none of it.

What can you say about Vinny that hasn't been said already. I have to say I enjoyed his contribution to the game, especially the contribution he made after 5 seconds in the 1988 FA cup final when he took the legs from under Liverpool's Steve MacMahon and received the fastest yellow card ever in a game. "Macca" was subdued after that and the "Crazy Gang" of Wimbledon FC won the cup with a shock 1-0 win.

The Wimbledon players celebrated with their fans at Plough Lane a few nights later when the players mooned their faithful and brought the "tut-tuts & their wives" out of the woodwork. The "Wombles" after this abandoned their home and began their long march in the 90's towards their near oblivion. They now are incarnated as the MK Dons while their longsuffering fans had enough, setting up a new club AFC Wimbledon in response to their team's abandonment...a sad state of affairs. The last game I saw incidentally at Stamford Bridge was a 3-1 win against them in 2000, we won 3-1 and they were relegated. I left for pastures anew a couple of weeks after that.

But back to Vinnie...

Vinny played for a while with Chelsea and it is fair to say he still is a popular figure at the"Bridge" because of his commitment to the cause even though he played for "Dirty Leeds". Still who can forget his sliding tackle on the Leeds mascot one day! Yes it really did happen! Vinny claims he slipped......

Nobody in their wildest dreams could ever have put Vinny Jones & Hollywood movie star in the same sentence and if you did, you would be asked, "what were you on?"

But he is and more power to him and has a string of appearances that would make more noted actors very envious. He is a frequent visitor to my hometown of Wexford, is a big Greyhound enthusiast and can be often found having apint in Jim Bradys bar with the proprietor & his pals from the area. My own oul fellah met him a few years ago in Capetown, South Africa and they had a laugh at how small the world is. From "Bradys to the Cape" as they remarked...

"Bradys to the Cape" is a great pub-crawl in Wexford, one to be treated with great respect and a "good fry-up" before you start. "Bradys" is in the red City of Maudlintown, technically the end of the Faythe to Eddie Macken's pub, "the Cape" in the Bull-ring.

There's a great story about "Bradys" & Brad Pitt but I'll tell that another day. There's an equally good story about Mackens but I'll digress on that one.

The FA Cup

The Competition has it's 125th incarnation this year, the 3rd round beginning this weekend when the big guns get involved.

It was in 1970 that I became a Chelsea fan, when we beat Leeds in the replay...I was 6 years old then, what a team that was! Peter Osgood scored in every round that year. Peter left us last year, he was 59 years old at the time of his passing - more on him to come in a future post.

Chelsea's win in 1997 was particularly memorable for all us Blues. It signalled an end to the long drought - all those trophyless years, Robbie Di Matteo's wonderstrike after 44 seconds, the fastest coal ever in a Cup Final, Mark Hughes' 4th medal ( & he a lifelong Chelsea fan), Matthew Harding's memory, the 4-2 win in the 3rd round v Liverpool, the contentious win against Leicester, ultimately Wisey lifting the cup and lifting a lot of monkeys off all our backs in so doing.

In 1988, little Wimbledon took on the might of Liverpool and as I described earlier with some outrageous fortune and tremendous heart took the spoils in an upset of enormous dimensions. Some Liverpool players never were the better for it after that day. Ronny Whelan, John Aldridge & Ray Houghton in particular took great heart from it and helped Ireland stage their own shock win over England in the European Championships a month later, see http://deadlydeshravenspoint.blogspot.com/2005/02/1988-and-all-that.html .

Ten years before, the Wombles of Wimbledon were playing non league football in their little nondescript ground at Plough Lane in that famous borough. Their rise was mercurial culminating in that win in 1988 in the World's oldest Cup competition.

That is the romance of "the Cup", pitting David v Goliath, amateur v professional, Non-league v Premier whatever cliche you can muster. I am sure every schoolkid that kicked a ball in the Islands of Britain & Ireland dreamt of walking out on Wembley's hallowed green turf, scoring the winning goal for their team. I know I did, rounding three Man United / Liverpool defenders in the blue of Chelsea as ITV's Brian Moore did the commentary, slipping the winning goal through the keepers legs in the dying seconds...oh happy days!