Sutton United's claim to fame remains the indelible mark they made on the FA Cup when beating First Division Coventry in 1989, but there was to be no new entry in the annals of the old competition for the Blue Square South side after Jeff Hughes's double ensured Notts County reached the third round and a trip to Doncaster at United's expense.
Sunday's game did at least mark history in once sense for the Surrey club ? it was the first time they have ever been on live TV ? but in truth they have struggled to live up to the heroes of '89. It is often forgotten that they lost 8-0 to Norwich in the fourth round following that win over Coventry and have only reached the third round once since. Nevertheless, they could count themselves unfortunate not to have at least forced a replay after giving as good as they got against County and missing a penalty with the scores at 1-0.
"This was our cup final," said their manager, Paul Doswell. "I've just said to the players: 'You've done the club proud, you've earned us the best part of �200,000.' But this is one adventure finished and now another one begins.
"Hopefully this run has reinvigorated people. This is my fourth season now and I'd like to think we've been doing that steadily, but what you hope is for us to keep a few hundred that have been here today, because they've seen a real decent, committed quality team and I think they should be very proud of them."
His County counterpart Martin Allen had said before the game that "We don't want to be the nation's entertainment" and he certainly got his wish. This was pretty dire stuff in the main, both sides reliant on picking up scraps from direct balls forward. For County the goals came at just the right times, with Hughes turning in Karl Hawley's shot 10 minutes before half-time and tapping home again just as the board went up to indicate a potentially fraught five minutes' injury time at the end of the 90. It might have been very different had Sutton's Leroy Griffiths not missed the crucial penalty just before the break, but Stuart Nelson, comfortably the busier of the two goalkeepers, dived low to save.
"We rode our luck a bit at times but you have to give an awful lot of credit to our players," said a relieved Allen. "Mentally it's very tough to come to these games, with the crowd behind the team, the players finding a little extra, the supporters finding that little bit extra. Thankfully we weathered the storm and Jeff Hughes picked up a couple of goals. Fair play to Jeff, but it's not just him today, all the players have played their part and all credit to them, the staff, and the supporters who stood out there in the rain. These are tough days. Trust me, these are tough hard games."
Man of the match Jeff Hughes (Notts Co)
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/dec/04/fa-cup-sutton-notts-county-report
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