THE GIANT KILLERS
Over 700 F A cup shocks dating back to 1888
From Warwick County's victory over Stoke in the qualifying rounds of 1888 right up to this season's competition, every occasion where a top flight team has been humbled by lower level opposition is included on this site along with every time a second level team has gone down to non league opponents since the formation of the third division in 1920.
You can view the shocks in two ways
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You won't find any mention of victories by non league teams over third or fourth tier league clubs or third and fourth tier victories over teams from the second level or results such as Wimbledon's 1988 cup final victory over Liverpool because while these were shock results, the webmaster does not classify them as giant killings. In the former a third division club could never be classed as a giant and any shock defeat suffered by them in the cup in the early rounds is just that, a shock defeat, not a giant killing. Likewise while a second division club losing to non league just about classifies as a giant killing, defeats against other league clubs can't be viewed as being as big. Finally the latter example was a fixture played between two clubs who played in the same division and so again, while being a shock, can't be classed as a giant killing.
THE TOP 100 GREATEST GIANT KILLINGS OF ALL TIME
Each tie has been given two rankings, where the webmaster feels it would have ranked in terms of cup shocks at the time, and where it ranks today. The webmaster has ranked every game against a set of criteria such as the two team's reputations and status at the time of the game, how many internationalists were on show for the giant and what top level experience could the minnow call upon, the venue and margin of victory is also weighed up. The games that made the top 100 have been given special attention on the site and are listed in the top 100 page. This ranking was done purely for fun and is not in any way official or sanctioned by The Football Associaition. {Though they won't find any more detailed comparison of cup giant killings anywhere on the web}
The webmaster welcomes contributions from readers with memories of any of these games. Were you there? {or in the really old cases can you remember grandad still talking about being at one of these games fifty years later} or better still have you played in a giant killing? Get in touch
n.b. Readers may find that the site only goes up to a certain year and then stops. This is because the site is being built as a live, yet unadvertised site. If you have stumbled across it incomplete, well done and keep coming back to see the entire site when it gets bang up to date.
About the Author
Steve Porter had three dreams as a child, to score the winning goal for Everton in an FA cup final, have a winning ride in a Grand National and marry a miss World. Having quickly established that his football ability was good but not good enough and his horse riding ability nowhere near good enough, he began writing about his favourite subjects. In 1992 Steve's work first got published in The Footballer magazine, a short lived historical monthly football journal. That was followed by regular publications in many English League football club programmes and publications as well as honourbale mention in several books relating to the history of the cup. Away from football Steve is fascinated by the Grand National, not least because its history is littered with innacuracies. Until recently he hosted a site dedicated to the first forty years of the event, much of which has since been transferred to the public domain of Wikipedia. Professionally Steve worked in the editorial archive of a national daily newspaper in London but has since returned to his native Northern ireland. Steve also dropped his ambitions towards a Miss World upon relaising that the most attractive thing about a woman is intelligence! Steve is also a keen amateur genealogist and accredited cocktail mixologist.
