David Barber, aka ‘The Barber’, joined The FA as Sir Alf Ramsey’s assistant after the Mexico World Cup in 1970 and has been the historian for the past 36 years.
He has attended nearly 7,000 matches at all levels but has lost none of his enthusiasm! Last weekend he was in the Midlands and saw two more games...
When I stay in Birmingham with my sister and her husband, I always ask for a room with a sea view. Curiously, they say they can’t help me.
The Stalybridge flags up at Tamworth
Last week I saw highlights from four of the Africa Cup of Nations matches without seeing a goal – just unlucky, I guess – and then watched Cambridge United v Man United on the telly in the front room in Smethwick, which was also goalless.
On Saturday I went to my first-ever Conference North fixture, Tamworth v Stalybridge Celtic at The Lamb, and with Tamworth having won eleven in a row and Stalybridge in the bottom six, I was hoping to see a goal at last.
I’d forgotten that the visitors had once been a Football League club – for two seasons in the 1920s – and didn’t know that Stalybridge’s ‘The Old Thirteenth Cheshire Astley Volunteer Rifleman Corps Inn’ is the pub with the longest name in Britain.
For 35 minutes on Saturday they held out with some solid play along the backline and I was just starting to think in terms of another 0-0. Then Tamworth’s No.10 took advantage of a couple of little slips to score twice in four minutes.
The Barber was at Tamworth's Lamb Ground
It finished 4-1 to the Lambs, who chalked up their 12th successive Conference North victory.
As we headed for the exit – there was a crowd of nearly a thousand on a bright afternoon – the PA announcer gleefully called out The FA Cup results at Chelsea, Manchester City and Spurs.
Bradford City’s win at the Bridge was obviously a major surprise, particularly after they were 2-0 down, but I don’t know if it compares with Sutton beating Coventry for example.
Our train from Birmingham New Street to Tamworth continued all the way to Glasgow. No, there was no chance of us dozing off and waking up north of the border.
Aston Villa v AFC Bournemouth on Sunday was my 464th FA Cup match and we had tickets in the Trinity Road Stand.
Bournemouth fans packed in at Villa Park
The train from Birmingham New Street to Aston only had three carriages and I think most of the 27,000 Villa Park crowd were squashed inside them. Fortunately, it was only a seven-minute journey.
For a chunk of the 1980s I was a Bournemouth fan, going to most of their home matches and a few away, so I was hoping they would get a positive result.
At half-time I thought either team could win it but Villa were flying after a brilliant goal by Carles Gil.
The queue for the train afterwards seemed to go back for (literally) miles. When we finally got on the platform around 5.30, it was so crowded that I thought we’d end up on the roof rack.
