Twelve weeks after Leicester City won the trophy for the first time amid tears of jubilation and the FA Cup is back to begin another adventure and celebrate its 150th year.
It will start its anniversary season, as it always does, far from the red carpets, champagne and fireworks of Wembley Stadium and among the tea-huts and half-time raffles of community grounds across the country.
Here, in truth, lies its charm and enduring appeal. Not only is it the world’s oldest football competition but the only one connecting the grassroots of English football to the glamour of the Premier League.
Twelve weeks after Leicester won last season’s FA Cup, the competition returns this weekend
Every entrant involved in England’s flagship tournament holds dreams of making it to Wembley
The polar opposite of the European Super League, designed for profit and doomed within 48 hours.
The FA Cup is the only competition enabling Marine to start against Barnoldswick Town and finish against Tottenham Hotspur before a live TV audience of 6.8 million.
Still casting a spell as it reaches this landmark.
‘There have been over 73,000 matches… since eight clubs kicked the whole thing off on 11 November 1871,’ writes Phil Annets, FA Cup aficionado and stats wizard who has poured his years of research into a new book FA Cup 150.
‘With more than 250,000 goals scored since Jarvis Kenrick registered the competition’s first ever one playing for Clapham Rovers in their 3-0 win over Upton Park.’
Facts leap from its pages to tell of 44 different winners from 140 finals. Arsenal have the most wins with 14 and have played the most games, 480. More than this, however, the facts tell the story of a competition that delivers in different dimensions.
Tottenham have the most FA Cup goals but Kettering Town of the National League North were the team they knocked from top spot when Harry Winks scored the second in a 4-1 win at Wycombe in the fourth round, in January.
Tottenham’s trip to minnows Marine was one of the highlights of last season’s FA Cup
Spurs went on to reach 900 goals. Kettering were stranded on 893 goals (776 of them scored in the qualifying rounds) when a Covid outbreak forced them to pull out before a third qualifying round tie against Brackley Town.
The pandemic ensured last season was like no other in the FA Cup. For the first time, there were no replays at any stage. Replays will be returning this season, although the endless replays are distant memories.
The record was five replays was required to settle a fourth qualifying round tie between Oxford City and Alvechurch in 1971-72, the season when the competition celebrated its Centenary and Leeds won it for the first and only time.
Also, the season when Ted MacDougall claimed a record nine goals in one game for Bournemouth against Margate. And when penalties were first introduced to decide the third-place game between losing semi-finalists, played for five years between 1970 and 1974.
Stoke beat Birmingham 4-3 in the penalty shootout after a goalless draw and it was 20 years before penalties returned to decide ties still level after one replay and extra time.
This season, 729 clubs will be competing, including a record 122 debutants and it starts this weekend with 174 extra-preliminary ties.
Among them, Mousehole at home to Helston Athletic in Cornwall, in what, according to Annets, will be a tie further south and further west than any ever played in the competition.
Mousehole can cling onto only one of those claims to fame, however, because Jersey Bulls are also involved for the first time and at home to Horsham YMCA, stretching the FA Cup’s frontiers even further south to the Channel Islands.
The pandemic provided another reason why last season’s competition was a memorable one
The only team to enter every single FA Cup is Marlow of the Isthmian League.
They did not take part in 1910-11 because the FA mislaid their application and then rejected an appeal, but they will begin their 140th FA Cup campaign when they face Slimbridge in the preliminary round, later this month.
‘You never know where it will lead,’ said Marlow chairman Terry Staines. ‘This is the magic. It starts for us against Slimbridge but a few games down the road and you could be playing Liverpool, and reaching the stage where you can be drawn against the big clubs is marvellous.’
Marlow played Tottenham at White Hart Lane in 1993, appearing on Match of the Day and Staines has vivid recollections of the day, from the utterances of Spurs boss Terry Venables in the directors’ box, a goal scored by captain David Lay in a 5-1 defeat and a cheque for £100,000.
‘Our next game was at Milton Keynes in the Berks and Bucks Senior Cup,’ he added. ‘They went bust after the game so we didn’t even get our expenses.’
Maidenhead United of the National League share this record. Like Marlow, they too have missed only one season in the FA Cup, opting out in 1876-77 to save money. And they are still playing at York Road stadium where they beat Marlow 1-0 in the first round in 1871.
Who could tell back then where it would lead. The world’s oldest competition is still stirring emotions like no other, as the fans of Marine and Leicester can testify.
Follow Phil Annets on Twitter @facupfactfile and to purchase FA Cup 150 go to facupfactfile.co.uk/shop.