Today is FA Cup Third Round day, when the minnows of the lower divisions, and even non-league clubs, get their day in the sun, taking on Premier League sides. On Football Focus this afternoon they’ve been looking back at some of the most memorable examples of top-league sides getting knocked out by groups of plumbers & electricians and one of those involved Woking, the nearest team to where I grew up.

Back in 1991 Woking were in the Isthmian League, light-years away from the old Second Division in which their opponents on third round day, West Brom, played. And after going a goal down it seemed like the natural order of things would be maintained. Then a chap called Tim Buzaglo knocked in a hat-trick and Woking were on their way to a match against First Division Everton (which they only narrowly lost).

Whilst I wasn’t at the game (though I did see them draw against First Division Coventry in the 1997 FA Cup) I had a very slim connection to the victory because my parents had bought the house where I grew up from Tim Buzaglo’s parents. He also played cricket on the pitch behind our garden as well as for the Gibraltar national side. Not bad for  a guy who worked in IT and didn’t fancy the lime-light that came with the FA Cup wins: luckily the football world didn’t agree and he was named as one of the FA’s Team of Heroes to commemorate 125 years of the Cup in 2006.

Unfortunately Woking got knocked out in in the qualifying rounds of the FA Cup this year so instead I’ll be cheering for all the other non-league sides, hoping that one of them will do a Buzaglo and get a moment in the sun.

Woking station photo by Kal Hendry on flickr