Any debate about whether this was a good weekend for the FA Cup should have ended with the peevish outburst from Sir Alex Ferguson in the aftermath of Manchester United's defeat by Portsmouth. Or when the headlines confirmed that defeat away to Barnsley had left Avram Grant with an even more tenuous grasp on his job at Chelsea.

As long as it hurts the big boys to go out of the FA Cup - and Ferguson was as puce as Grant was pallid - then Brian Barwick can be sure that this old competition is in robust health. Outside an England international, there are not many events which can unite nine million viewers like watching the ball ricochet around Barnsley's penalty area in the dying seconds. Never before have Chelsea made so many people happy.

Thanks to the progress of the minnows, the chief executive can shelve any plans to rebrand the FA Cup, he can put away the file of gimmicky ideas. It is a file that exists, if only in the minds of the FA hierarchy.

They would have been negligent not to wonder how the Cup might endure at a time when the Champions League dominates the calendar and distorts the Premier League. Introducing prize-money was an inevitable response, with the rewards due to grow markedly, and there have been further internal debates about how else the competition might be “updated”, such as guaranteeing home advantage to the lower-division clubs. It was a system that existed in the French Cup but was subsequently watered down under pressure from the big sides (thereby proving its success as a method of seeding).

Such ideas have been tossed around a table at Soho Square, but they can be put away for another year at least. The FA Cup has got everyone talking without any need for tinkering.

Some of the chatter has been of a competition that, in losing the big clubs, has lost its interest, but that was the view only of a curmudgeonly minority and it was certainly not the noise coming out of the FA's marketing men yesterday.

The crowds for the semi-finals might be less than capacity and the television audience for the final will almost certainly be below last season's peak of almost 13 million for the dire contest between Manchester United and Chelsea, but the FA's television contracts are long-term and the income is unaffected by the status of the finalists.

And given that Chelsea would have been making a fourth visit to Wembley in less than a year had they reached the semi-finals, there is some relief that fatigue will not be setting in. Supporters of all four semi-finalists can expect to hoover up souvenirs like contestants in a supermarket sweep. At £10 a programme, the profit is not to be sniffed at by an organisation that is paying back a loan of £426 million.

There will be empty seats in the Club Wembley tier - how many “corporates” will turn up for Barnsley against Cardiff? - and even FA executives privately accept that playing the semi-finals at Wembley is far from ideal. But the upside is that tens of thousands will revel in an unexpected visit.

Reasons to be cheerful also include the death, surely, of Michel Platini's ludicrous campaign for a Champions League place for the winner. The prospect of Barnsley in the Uefa Cup is mad enough. It is an idea that the FA is comfortable with, just so long as the big boys are back next year.

Peter Buckley appears to have gone the distance after 291 bouts

His trainer, Nobby Nobbs, says that he has not heard from his boxer in weeks. Perhaps Peter Buckley has finally quit, he speculates. In which case it seems only right to mark the career of the man who has fought - and lost - more than any British boxer in history. Anyone who has endured a staggering 291 professional bouts deserves recognition, even if an equally remarkable 249 of those bouts have ended in defeat.

The last of them was against Leonard Lothian at the Ramada Hotel, Leicester, in December. Not quite Caesars Palace, but Buckley has known bigger occasions and more celebrated opponents. He once took Naseem Hamed the distance and has boxed Duke McKenzie, Colin McMillan and Scott Harrison. He has faced 11 world champions. He boxed on the same card as Mike Tyson, but has spent the past few years dropping in at short notice at the very bottom of the bill at shows.

Nobbs recalls Buckley stepping in for one televised bout just hours before the first bell. His man would answer the call whatever his condition. “I've come in at 5 o'clock in the morning, flagging from a club,” Buckley, from Birmingham, once said. “At 11, Nobby might call me for a show at Nottingham that evening. And I'll take it.”

Now, at 39, he appears to have bowed out after almost 20 years of boxing. There could have been worse ways of making a living. “Boxing kept me out of prison, tell you the truth,” Buckley has said. “When I was 15, my dad passed on and I really went off the rails. They chucked me out of school for fighting and I was sent to a special school. I started robbing cars, robbing shops, fighting, being violent and, at 15, I was locked up.”

Several family members have been to jail. “Loads of other mates are inside,” he said. Boxing gave him self-respect even if his record was one draw and 79 defeats since his last win, in October 2003. Only Reggie Strickland, an American journeyman, has boxed more times, with 363 bouts and 276 defeats.

Nobbs says that he is waiting to hear from Buckley - “I think he's been having a hard time,” he says cryptically - and perhaps he will resurface as a trainer. He has the licence and knowhow to pass on, even if it is experience of defeat. “I got into a rut of losing,” Buckley says, with considerable understatement. “But I liked fighting anyway, and I ended up getting paid to do it every other week.”

José's travel plan gives FA an idea

The FA surely listened with fascination to José Mourinho's suggestion that the Community Shield be taken to New York, Sydney or Tokyo. Having undermined the Premier League's 39th-game proposal, the governing body could be very mischievous and pinch the idea.

There is guaranteed involvement from at least one of the big four and no disruption to the regular season. And it is not as though anyone in England would miss it.