13 JANUARY 1950, Page 9

Fourth Round Draw

By J. P. W. MALLAL1EU, M.P. (for Huddersfield)

AST September there were 617. Today there should be only 32, if the replays have been tidied away. By the first Saturday

of May there will be only two ; two teams to battle on Wembley's polished lawn for the most famous sporting cup in the world. But May is still far distant. Indeed, as always, for some fans there will be no May this year, no springtime softening the breeze which flutters the bright-coloured flags over Wembley's towers. Those fans will be skirled and tattered by harsh January gusts in the debris of the Third Round, until, suddenly, it is June and cricket wipes away the tears from our eyes.

Fewer even of those whose teams have cleared the Third Round can yet bring themselves to look further forward than January 28th, when the Fourth Round is fought. And not one of the most dogmatic fans even of Manchester United, of Sunderland, of Derby County or of Portsmouth can say confidently that May Day's sun will shine for them. Regardless of what fate may have overtaken Huddersfield, I always find the Fourth and Fifth Rounds unexciting in prospect. The Third Round, because the lions of the League come into the fight for the first time and because sometimes they get their tails tweaked by unclassifiable collections from unmemor- able towns, has all the excitement of "Curtain Up" at the theatre. By the Sixth Round, the last in which a team has the chance to play at home, cup-fighting form is coming clearer and fans are beginning to let their hopes get out of hand. There is a tingling expectancy of things almost too good to be true about the Sixth Round. But the Fourth and Fifth seem really humdrum.

In one way I find this year's Fourth Round outlook especially dull. Every team for which I have affection, bar one, has been jostled ignominiously to one side. Little Oldham Athletic, the first professional team I ever saw—then they were among the lords of the First Division. Today they gather what crumbs they can in the Third Division (North). They are out of the Cup, swamped by the flashy, money-jingling Newcastle United. Sheffield Wednesday—I used to follow them, partly because of their funny name, partly because they were Yorkshire, partly because a visit to their ground at Hillsborough meant crossing the lovely Feather- bed Moss and winding down the Snake. They are out of the Cup because their gallant ten men could not keep out the mighty Arsenal eleven in the last minute of the game. As for Huddersfield, there is only me to say, "Oh, the pity of it."

Yet it so happens that the Fourth Round draw has provided one match which may well be talked of for years to come. The Spurs dropped into the Secorad Division in 1934. There, ever since, they have languished—until this year. Today they languish no

more for—without throwing money into exorbitant transfer fees—

they have built a team which has suddenly caught fire and run to a clear lead of ten points over all its Second Division chal- lengers. In the Third Round they had to play away against a First Division club, and won by a good deal more than the single goal which appeared in the evening papers. Now they are drawn at home ; drawn at home against Sunderland.

Sunderland were once called the "Team of all the Talents." But even in those great days they could make nothing of the Cup.

Perhaps the tenseness of the occasion or the violent cup-tie methods of their opponents threw their smooth-running machine into dis- order. Whatever it was, things always went wrong for Sunderland in the Cup—until 1937. In that year they flowed majestically past floundering opponents and at last carried the Cup with them.

This season, though they have not, even yet, lost one match at home, they began hesitatingly. Some of the team's forwards behaved like meteors rather than stars. But now steadiness has been added to - brilliance, and the north-east coast is on tip-toe when the team flows purposely over Roker Park.

But White Hart Lane is not Roker Park. At White Hart Lane, fortnight after fortnight through the season, there are some fifty thousand men, women and boys who determine, before the match, that the Spurs shall win that day. It does not matter if the Spurs are having a losing run, it does not matter even if they are playing downright badly. That Spurs crowd never loses its form. From the covered stands which surround the ground and protect even the humblest spectator from the elements, there issues such concentrated vocal will-power as will galvanise all but the most jelly-bodied team into firm, decisive action. On no ground, except Cardiff Arms Park and, possibly, Hampden, do spectators manage to impart such drive into their team. it is against this rampart that the waves of the north-east coast will thunder, a fortnight on Saturday. On that day there is no place where I would rather be than in the vibrating heart of the Spurs' crowd. Of the other matches, I shall look first for the result of Preston versus Manchester United. [In vain. Watford beat Preston on Wednes- day.—Ed., Spectator.] Not only are United the last of the teams still in the Cup for whom I have personal affection, but Preston North End are of all teams the one towards which I feel malice. This arises from one August Saturday long ago when I went to Deepdale for Huddersfield's first match of the season. I was sitting in my shirt-sleeves, eyes shining in the sbnlight, eagerly at peace with the world, when a Preston supporter hit me over the head with her parasol. She said that Alf Young, Huddersfield's centre half, was a dirty player and held me responsible. As Alf Young was for me the epitome of sportsmanship, I dealt her a neat one on the ankle. There matters rested until in 1938, in the last minute of extra time, Preston beat Huddersfield in the Cup Final by a penalty given against the same Alf Young. I thought at once that that wretched woman had got at the referee.

But, more than anything, I'll be wishing it was June and York- shire in form again to rebuild my shattered pride. You see, you may not have noticed it but, in the Third Round of the Cup,

Sunderland beat Huckkrslield by MI goals to none.