As you can see from the above map,
the Giant Killing Adventure is travelling 192 miles back up north from the
Lamex Stadium in Stevenage to Goodison Park in Liverpool.
It is the weekend of the 5th Round Proper of the FA Cup 2013/14. Only 4
rounds to go and this round will see the top 4 Premiership teams pitted against
each other as Chelsea travel to Manchester City and Liverpool take on Arsenal.
The Giant Killing Adventure has also picked up its first all Premiership tie as
Swansea City travel to Liverpool to take on Everton. Swansea are also our first
non English team, so we welcome Swansea and Wales to our little adventure.
Only 16 teams will fight it out during this round.
V
I
Swansea is located on the south coast of Wales and it is the country’s
second largest city. Traditionally
Swansea was a Rugby Union area and the City football team were formed as
Swansea Town in 1912 – adopting the same white strip as the Swansea Rugby Union
Club. The football team changed their
name in 1969 when they were granted City status. Swansea have won the Welsh FA Cup 10 times. The
team has reached the semi final stage of the English FA Cup twice (1926 and
1964).
They moved to their purpose built Liberty Stadium in 2005 and current FA
Cup ‘holder’ and Everton manager Roberto Martinez secured them promotion to the
Championship before leaving for Wigan in 2009. Current Liverpool manager Brendan
Rogers got Swansea into the Premiership in 2011 – they were the Premiership’s
first ever Welsh team and finished a fantastic 11th in their inaugural
season (beating Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool during the campaign).
Since Roger’s departure to
Liverpool, Michael Laudrup took over as City Manager in 2012 and he guided them
to victory in last year’s 2012/13 Capital One Cup final. Laudrup was sacked in
February 2014 and since then they have been led by interim player manager Gary
Monk. In the 2013/14 season they are currently in 10th place with 28
points from 26 games. During their current FA Cup campaign they beat Manchester
United away from home 1-2 and then Birmingham City away from home 1-2. This shows they are good at getting results
away from home and used to travelling – Everton need to be on top form.
Goodison Park
Speaking of Everton,
this is the Giant Killing Adventure’s first visit to Goodison Park. We visited nearby Crosby in the first Qualifying Round back in September 2013 (as Marine FC were beaten at home by Curzon Ashton). Everton are
having a good 2013/14 campaign as they are in 6th position in the
league with 45 points from 25 games – they have recently been beaten by rivals
Liverpool and Tottenham as they chase for the 4th place Champions
League spot - their last Premiership game was called off due to horrific weather conditions, so let's hope the weather stays nice for tomorrow.
This is Everton FC’s second match in the Giant Killing
Adventure – previously in the FA Cup they beat QPR at home 4-0 in the 3rd
Round Proper and then we witnessed a domineering performance as they knocked
out previous blog favourites Stevenage 0-4.
Martinez is the current manager to ‘hold’ the FA
Cup so perhaps his recent experience in the competition can lead them to
victory in this game.
It was very easy to get
tickets for this game. I simply went
onto Everton FC’s website and ordered them with no hassle. I’d like to thank Everton for making this
easy as tickets for Stevenage and Doncaster in the previous two rounds involved
having to call the clubs because their Websites would not let me buy without
previous pre-requisite games – I’ve been following this cup since 17th
August 2013 and the Giant Killing adventure has reported on the previous 11 rounds,
so I’d call that pre-requisite. Thanks
once again to Everton for hassle free tickets.
Don’t forget about The Giant Killing
Adventure Facebook page. The page will
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by ‘Liking’ the page. Click on link below:
Sunday’s Blog guest will be Lee Topping (aka Mr Tops) as he
makes his 2nd appearance in the Giant Killing Adventure. 1 day’s sleep to go...
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