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The last few years have been rough ones for the old institution that is the Football Association Challenge Cup, battered by the withdrawal of Manchester United, hampered by teams fielding weakened elevens, and still disfigured by the unholy gap that exists between Chelsea reserves and Everton’s first team.

But somehow, the old girl has managed to come up with an extraordinary competition this time around, reviving the romance of old – Havant & Waterlooville, we thank you – with some absorbing ties, which, in their infinite wisdom, the BBC have generally neglected.

Thanks to the vagaries of the draw – notably Manchester United v Arsenal – and the incompetence of Liverpool, the FA Cup is the most open it’s been in years going in to the quarter final stage.

Sadly, logic screams at us that by the time Saturday is out, Manchester United and Chelsea will have overcome Portsmouth and Barnsley respectively and the semi-final contingent will be starting to take up a familiar look. God forbid the final should be a repeat of last year’s boreathon between Chelsea and Manchester United.

But Sunday throws up genuine FA Cup magic and entertainment between sides for whom an FA Cup Final appearance would not only be something of a minor miracle but would be the gateway to European football too, a real prize worth sweating blood for.

The first of the two games is Middlesbrough against Cardiff City, Middlesbrough a trace fortunate to be there after they were gifted passage by the careless hands of Paddy Kenny. For Gareth Southgate, getting this far must be genuine relief after a tough first18 months in the Boro hot seat that have bee anything but comfortable since he succeeded Steve McClaren. Still, could have been worse, he could have had the 18 months that McClaren had.

Southgate is one of the new breed of managers and shows potential for the future, while being simultaneously hamstrung by the expectations of a crowd who believe he has spent fortunes. Perhaps he has by the standards of the Boro that nearly went bust 20 odd years ago, but by the standards of the Premiership, he’s spent a pittance and lost key figures such as Viduka, Yakubu and Woodgate, the ever loyal Boro fan who repaid them for doing the Lazarus on his career by heading for Tottenham at the first opportunity.

Cardiff have had the bizarrest of seasons. Dave Jones spent the early weeks fielding death threats as his team could barely string two points together, then saw them race up the table to the verge of the promotion race in the Championship race, only to start plummeting from grace once again as soon as the cup run began to take precedence.

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink will be the key to it all from a Cardiff perspective, his explosive finishing still undimmed by the years as is his incredibly irritating habit of complaining about everything from offside decisions to the colour of the grass. Great player, desperately annoying bloke. With Robbie fowler having apparently retired early – though he didn’t tell Cardiff when he was signing his contract – Hasselbaink is the great hope for Cardiff, though Boro would be foolish to underestimate the dangers posed by Joe Ledley out wide in what will surely be one of his last games for the club before he move to the Premier League in the summer. All the same, it’s got to be Boro to grind out another win.

Which leaves Bristol Rovers against West Bromwich Albion in the Sunday night slot, otherwise know as the “game nobody wants to watch slot”. That’s a pity really because in some ways, this is the real magic of the cup, with one of the real underdogs making it to the semi-finals of the FA Cup, and to a day out at Wembley, in itself a controversial move which must surely take away from the final, I think it’s awful. You get to a semi, you’ve achieved nothing. Wembley should be the goal, the Holy Grail, and it should be reserved for the final. It cheapens it, because the whole thing of the cup was to get to the final and have your day out at Wembley. Rant over.

They always say the FA Cup is the great leveller and when you see the pitch that Bristol Rovers play on, you can see why. Used for rugby as well, it’s less a field of dreams than a potato patch, rutted and marked, less than ideal for a footballing team. Given that Tony Mowbray’s West Brom don’t do much other than play football, the trip to Rovers is not the dream ticket it might have seemed to most when the balls were drawn a couple of weeks ago. Having got this far without a single home draw, Albion know what it takes to stand up to the assault from a home team desperate to make use of their advantage, but the first 20 minutes of this encounter are likely to be something else again.

Rovers have had a pretty middling season after winning promotion, but they’re an attack minded outfit who will throw everything at Albion in the early stages, with Ricky Lambert a real danger up front – her scored a hat-trick in the 3-3 pre-season draw between the two sides.

Albion’s not so secret weapon has ceased to be Kevin Phillips in recent weeks, Roman Bednar taking up the slack in a late burst to try and win selection for the Czech Republic at the upcoming European Championships. Bednar scores pretty much every time he takes the field and has scored in every round of the cup thus far. He more than anybody else could be the difference between the two sides in the end, completing his rehabilitation after a grim last season at Hearts last term.

Which would leave us with Manchester United, Chelsea, West Bromwich Albion and Middlesbrough. If the draw comes out in that order, then the FA Cup survives to fight another day, and we have a final where one f the two underdogs has to produce the game of their lives, a la Sunderland against Leeds in 1973. If the two big guns avoid each other and make it through, the tales about the cup losing its appeal will be given more credence. Pray for a good draw…

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