Surely this is what the FA Cup is all about. David has landed his juiciest blow on Goliath's chin. The last four in the FA Cup are all wonderfully unfashionable and the world is a richer place. The FA Cup has suddenly gone back to its Old Etonian, public school roots. Let's shout it from the rooftops.

Championship sides Barnsley and Cardiff City will meet each other in one Cup semi-final and Portsmouth, who last won the competition 69 years ago, go head to head with the Baggies of West Brom, Cup winners exactly 40 years ago.

Now the romantic idealists among us have always cheered for the underdog. It may have taken them roughly 136 years but the FA Cup has finally come to its senses. It's champagne all round and joyous abandon.

‘But the egos have been punctured and the reputations shattered. Barnsley and Cardiff have surprised everybody, including themselves.’


There are four teams left in the grand old competition and all come from the comparative backwaters of football. Time for a huge knees-up!

While the lords and dukes of the Premier League have fallen by the wayside the little Championship urchins have now made tumultuous history. This has to be the most astonishing weekend in FA Cup history.

Over the years there have been all kinds of major upsets and shocks in the FA Cup. But surely the semi-finalists of 2008 will never be forgotten. It's almost as if Barnsley and Cardiff are impostors at some royal garden party

There was a time when so-called minnows – like 1973 FA Cup winners Sunderland and the country bumpkin winners of 1978, Ipswich Town – would make a day of it at the old Wembley.

They would climb on to their coaches at the crack of dawn, create a raucous old racket on board, sing their FA Cup anthems and then dance down Wembley Way like drunken sailors. Nobody gave either Sunderland or Ipswich a cat in hell's chance.

But the egos have been punctured and the reputations shattered. Barnsley and Cardiff have surprised everybody, including themselves. They may be the downtrodden servants downstairs but their richer brethren upstairs may have to stub out their cigars.

Deep in the heart of mining country Barnsley showed the upper-class snobs of Chelsea exactly how to  create a Cup shock. They may drive their million pound Porsches and eat caviar for lunch but Joe Cole, Sean Wright-Phillips and all will not be living it up at their second consecutive FA Cup Final.

Barnsley and Cardiff have upset the applecart and for one weekend at least Wembley will have a new set of visitors. Who knows, maybe just maybe, one of them will lift the famous old trophy? Some of us will just explode with joy if they do.