The Barnsley chairman, Gordon Shepherd had said in jest to his captain, Brian
Howard, that if the team were lucky enough to be awarded a last-minute
penalty at Anfield, he was duty-bound to miss it. A replay at Oakwell would
have been a welcome payday for the South Yorkshire club, who found
themselves in administration not so long ago.
As it turned out, Howard was perhaps unjustly denied a spot-kick in stoppage
time. When Sami Hyypia pulled him down in the box, referee Martin Atkinson
waved play on, and Howard had to find another way of producing a winner. His
last-gasp shot into the bottom corner, which eliminated Liverpool from the
FA Cup, adds another dramatic chapter to the competition’s rich history.
Barnsley are 14th in the Championship, and despite faring pretty well on the
whole, they have secured only one league victory on their travels this
season. What makes this performance all the more remarkable is that they had
conceded seven goals without reply in their previous two away games, losing
3-0 to Plymouth and 4-0 to Coventry. To a list of this season’s FA Cup
victims that hitherto included only Blackpool and Southend United has been
added the name of the 2005 European champions.
Did Howard ever believe that it could really happen? “Hon-estly?” he replies.
“Not really, no.”
Neither did his manager, Simon Davey, by the sound of it, although he should
have known it was his lucky day from the moment a passing bird did the dirty
on him yesterday morning.
Having cancelled out Dirk Kuyt’s first-half opener, Barnsley had been hanging
on for dear life as the game entered its final quarter, thanks in large part
to their brilliant goalkeeper, Luke Steele, signed on loan from West
Bromwich Albion only three days earlier.
“They had to ride their luck, make last-ditch tackles, and the keeper pulled
off some fantastic saves, but they stuck to their task,” said Davey. “They
took their chance, and then they got another one. I was just trying to put
players behind the ball so that we could take them back to Oakwell. You are
at Anfield, you are drawing, and the fans are over the moon to get a replay,
but we have ambitious players at this club. They want the limelight. It was
a lack of discipline that won us the game.”
Davey, of course, was joking, at least we thought he was. The former Preston
and Carlisle player, who had his career curtailed by injury, is one of these
managers who have enjoyed a head start on the rest.
Given his first coaching job by David Moyes, he remains a friend of the
Everton manager, and there are certainly parallels to be drawn between the
two. Barnsley even used Everton’s facilities for training on Friday.
At 37, the man who grew up in Swansea, a long-distance Liverpool supporter,
already has been identified as one of the country’s brightest managerial
prospects. He took over from the sacked Andy Ritchie in November of 2006 and
miraculously saved Barnsley from relegation. This year, he has assembled a
cosmopolitan squad – 15 different nationalities at the last count – and
introduced a freshness to their football.
“It’s just like watching Brazil,” chanted the Tykes fans, and they weren’t
just talking about their big midfielder, Anderson De Silva, who was the
model of composure in midfield. Defender Dennis Souza is of the same
nationality, while Diego Leon represented Spain in suitable fashion. Given
that Davey was without three of his better players – Jon Macken (signed from
Derby County in January), Lewin Nyatanga (on loan from Derby) and Tony
Warner (on loan from Fulham) were all cup-tied – the result was a reward for
his resourcefulness.
Not that anything he has achieved so far can compare with that which he
presided over at Anfield yesterday. “To take a team to the club I supported
as a kid and win against world-class players, a world-class manager: it has
to be the highest point of my career,” said Davey.
There were echoes of 1997 about all this, the season when Barnsley’s brief
appearance in the top flight revolved around a 1-0 victory at Anfield.
Ashley Ward, a journeyman whose 15 months at Barnsley were a brief stop
during an 11-club career, was the scorer that day.
Yesterday, there were two of them: Stephen Foster, who had the audacity to
outjump Peter Crouch in the process; and then Howard, who had already
notched 10 from midfield this season.
Not surprisingly, the 24-year-old match-winner was in no mood to dampen the
party with realism last night. Asked who he fancied in the quarter-finals, a
stage the club have not reached since 1999, he produced the obligatory
indifference, before going on to suggest that the shortage of Premier League
clubs left in the competition made a run to the final possible.
“I don’t see why not,” he said. “Millwall went all the way a few years ago and
never had to play a Premier League side. Bristol Rovers are in the
quarter-final.
All these clubs will fancy their chances, and we’re no different.
“The most important thing is a home draw. We have a great home record, and we
can give anyone a game there. If you can come to Anfield and win, you are
not fussed who you get.”
And with that, he was gone, well almost. Not before one last remark, a
delicious little dig at Liverpool’s decision to play with an understrength
side. They had one eye on Tuesday’s Champions League tie against Inter, of
course, but the plan was not to be bundled out of the FA Cup. Rafa Benitez,
it seems, underestimated Barnsley. “It has backfired,” said Howard. “They
10 things you never knew about the team that toppled Liverpool
1 Formed in 1887, the Championship side is known as the Tykes, the
nickname for a traditional Yorkshire character, or the Colliers, because of
the mining heritage
2 Manager Simon Davey was a childhood supporter of Liverpool. He was
appointed caretaker-manager in November 2006 and given the job on a
permanent basis at the end of the year, leading the club’s successful fi ght
against relegation last season
3 Bulldog Toby Tyke is the club mascot 4 Chairman Gordon
Shepherd joked before the tie that if Barnsley were level with a minute to
go, and won a penalty, Brian Howard should miss it in order to get a
lucrative replay. Howard scored the winner, with a minute to go, but not
from the spot
5 The fi rst bottle bank for glass recycling was introduced in Barnsley
in 1977
6 This was Barnsley’s second consecutive away win against Liverpool,
whom they beat 1-0 in the Premier League in 1997 7 The motto of the
town of Barnsley is ‘Judge Us by Our Actions’
8 Barnsley’s biggest Cup win came in 1910 – a 6-0 fi rst-round victory
over Blackpool
9 The fi rst reference to the town occurs in the Domesday Book
10 Their most famous player was Tommy Taylor, who went on to win two
league titles with Manchester United and 19 England caps before dieing in
the Munich disaster
Dickie’s in tears...again
Former Test match umpire Dickie Bird called it the best day of his life after
watching Barnsley win 2-1 at Liverpool yesterday. Bird, arguably the
Yorkshire town’s favourite son, was his usual emotional self soon after
Brian Howard’s winning goal for the Championship side knocked out the
seven-times FA Cup winners. “We deserved to win,” he said. “We had two
chances and took them both. I’ve been supporting Barnsley for 70 years and
this is the best day ever. I never thought we’d win. I thought we might nick
a draw. I first saw Barnsley in 1938. I was five and would have been
watching on my father’s shoulders. Given the teams that are left we could go
further. Maybe all the way. They’re putting a statue up to me in the town,
but they’ll have to put one up for the team if they win the Cup.” Liverpool
manager Rafa Benitez was stunned after watching the club lose to their
fourth lower division opponents at home in the FA Cup since 1992. “I am
bitterly frustrated. The team are very upset,” he said.
are behind in the league, and now they are out of the FA Cup. The Champions
League is all they have left.” If Liverpool don’t become any more adept at
taking their chances, a raft of which they missed in the absence of Fernando
Torres, they may not even have that.
