ONE reason I have to remember Ian Porterfield is that he sent my mother into premature labour. Another – and one we should all share – is that he came to epitomise the great British sporting underdog. The lost underdog now, in every sense. My mum was not a Sunderland supporter back in 1973. Just a fan of any David going up against a Goliath. And, of course, no Goliath was despised more than Don Revie’s Leeds United. All of which prompted her, at seven- and-a-half months pregnant, to leap from her floral sofa and punch the air when Porterfield wellied it past David Harvey to put Bob Stokoe’s Second Division supposed no-hopers in front. She stopped just short of doing cartwheels across the Axminster, seeing as her waters promptly broke. Needless to say she missed Jimmy Montogomery’s double save and Bob Stokoe’s delightfully daft post-match pitch invasion. But just as that day my younger sister arrived, another FA Cup folk hero and story were born. Another shock (a 275,000-volt megajolt, mind) delivered to a competition energised by its unpredictability. Three years later, Bobby Stokes sealed the first such surprise that I remember from childhood – leaving me smitten by the Cup – by scoring the winner for Southampton (again, of the Second Division) against Manchester United. Yet there is something painfully symbolic, albeit not nearly so painful as the fact they both died too young, in Porterfield and Stokes no longer being with us. For it reminds us we must mourn the loss of the footballing underdog . . . the death of David. Killed by the Premiership. Since the English game began worshipping a new cash cow in 1992, the FA Cup has been won by one of its Big Four – Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United – in every season bar one. And though Everton’s triumph over the Red Devils in 1995 was a surprise in that the teams finished 13 Premier League places apart that year, it was about as romantic as a wet weekend in Southport. Sure, Millwall got to the final three years ago to conjure memories of great upsets past. But, when it came down to it, they were pleased just to get there. Indeed, that 2004 final was the antithesis of all that was once magical about the Cup. It merely provided a measure of the gulf in class between our top and second tiers. A gulf that was a mere gap when Stokoe’s boys bridged it. In widening between the margins of football’s haves and have-nots, the Premier League has succeeded in making the FA Cup as predictable as, well, as the Premier League, with its own rich and poor. When all but four clubs in the top flight are annually outgunned in the battle for honours, what chance David with his catapult? One consolation of which is that the name of Ian Porterfield and the memory of his Wembley miracle will remain cherished way beyond Wearside after his other considerable achievements in football have been forgotten. In the wake of his passing last week, someone wrote that Porterfield (left) had provided us with the “apotheosis” of FA Cup upsets. Before I go and look that one up in the dictionary, I’ll suggest that we won’t see the like of either – Porterfield or a comparable upset – again. | 
