Those who have followed the cup exploits of Argyle over the years will no doubt have been surprised at our recent flirtations with the latter rounds – Knocked out in the Quarter Finals of the FA Cup by Ben Foster (aided slightly by the other 10 Watford Players who were camped in front of his goal), and now a Third Round tie against West Ham United awaits us in the Carling Cup on Wednesday 26th September.

Now most fans wouldn’t exactly be getting too excited about getting to the third round of a Mickey Mouse cup, but then most fans’ teams probably get there every couple of years. Our record in the competition is pitiful at best: This is the first time we have progressed to Round Three since 1992 (Peter Shilton was our manager, and we were knocked out by the mighty Scarborough over two legs), and we managed to string together a run of 12 First-round exits in a row after that!

We finally broke that jinx two years ago, slipping past Peterborough 2-1 at Home Park, before crashing out away to Barnet in one of the worst Argyle displays ever seen (We were “between managers” at the time, and Taribo West was starting to show his “real” age), and normality was restored last season when we slipped out at Round One as per normal, this time to Walsall.

Add in the fact that Ian Holloway is, by his own admission “like a cheap Tea-Bag.. I’m never in the cup for long”, and you have to wonder where this run is coming from? I guess every team must have a cup run every now and then, but when you are historically that rubbish in the cups, your expectations tend to be a bit lower!

We’re never likely to go all the way and actually win a major trophy (well, not in the foreseeable future anyway, you never know – Roman Abramovich might fall in love with all things green!) so for now, the photo above is as close as Ollie’s going to get to getting his hands on the FA Cup (The other guy is not actually our pacy centre forward, but BBC Radio Devon’s Argyle commentator “Sir” Gordon Sparks).

So are we becoming a “cup team”? Well, we’ll see what the FA Cup brings this year, but I certainly feel we can into the cup games with a tiny bit more hope than in the previous 15 years! I’ll be at Upton Park with the rest of the Green Army in a few weeks, hopefully to cheer on the lads to a memorable victory, and our first Fourth Round tie since… erm… do records go back that far?

Onwards and Upwards!

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