COME ON COUNTY: Newport County also reached performed FA Cup miracles 70 years ago - here's how they did it - Part 1

FOR better and - many would also claim - for worse, football has changed irrevocably in the past 70 years.

Rules, styles of play, kit, pitches, fitness, training, transfers, the fans' experience, players' wages... the list is lengthy, with most of its subjects debated endlessly in homes, workplaces, pubs, and stadia the world over.

The FA Cup has not been immune to such changes. For many the venerable old competition has long since lost its lustre, slipping down the pecking order for clubs with greater glories in sight, or league status to protect.

In recent seasons, many third and fourth round ties in particular have been played out in half-full or less than half-full grounds, most Premier League and Championship clubs playing weakened teams against lower league opponents and even each other.

But there are also many for whom the FA Cup retains its allure as the occasional mischievous leveller of the increasingly uneven playing field on which the game is staged.

This, in essence, forms the basis of the old saying 'the romance of the FA Cup', and plenty of clubs and their fans have willingly submitted themselves to this across the competition's - with breaks for two World Wars - 147 years.

It was in the early years of national recovery after the second of these wars that Newport County's first serious romance with the FA Cup occurred - and with the Class of 2018/19 about to pit their footballing wits against Manchester City, it is right and proper to highlight again the heroics of their counterparts 70 years ago.

To describe as poor Newport County's start to that season, would be an understatement. It was October 2 1948, before the team won a Third Division (South) match, at the 11th time of asking, a 4-1 home win against Swindon Town in front of more than 11,500 people at Somerton Park.

County won just twice more before the FA Cup campaign began, at Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday November 27, and with 11 points from a possible 36 (it was only two points for a win back then) were prime candidates for the lottery of club chairmen's largesse that was re-election to the Football League.

Two goals from forward Reg Parker had not been enough to stave off defeat (2-3) at Brighton in the league on November 6, but manager Tom Bromilow - a Liverpool 'great' as a player in the 1920s - talked a good game in the South Wales Argus ahead of the first round tie, declaring that County "stand an excellent chance of making progress".

His players proved him right. A brace from inside forward Len Comley and Parker's 15th goal of the season, alongside a determined display from a defence that had to date conceded 47 goals in 18 league games, earned a 3-1 win on the south coast.

NEWCOMER: Len Comley scored in four of County's six FA Cup matches in 1948/49

A 2-5 defeat at Swindon in the clubs' reverse league fixture separated the first and second round ties for County, and next up in the Cup was a trip to London.

Leytonstone were among the foremost non-league clubs in England, Isthmian League champions and winners of the FA Amateur Cup for the previous two seasons.

Manager Bromilow warned that County's players must reproduce the form they displayed at Brighton to win through against opponents described in the Argus as being in "strict training", which included two-mile runs in Army boots.

Tom Bromilow spoke to the Argus before the Leystonstone match on Saturday December 11 1948

With County struggling, the potential for an albeit modest 'giant-killing' was considerable before kick-off on Saturday December 11, and very likely at half-time, with County trailing 0-3 to their rampant hosts.

The manager's half-time pep talk could reasonably have been turned into a proper dressing down.

But Len Comley, still finding his feet at County after his arrival at Somerton Park in October, told Andrew Taylor - in conversation for the latter's essential book Newport County AFC: The First 100 Years - that "we goes in at half time and fair-do’s Bromilow didn’t lose his temper, he just said, ‘You can do better.’"

County took those words to heart, weathering the Leytonstone storm in front of a crowd of 10,000, to claw back the deficit and emerge 4-3 winners, with goals from striker Eddie Carr (2), midfielder Bobby Harper and Comley.

These days, barely a day goes by without a football match being televised live, but back in 1948 television remained an expensive novelty for all but the well-off. Had the BBC had its way however, the Leytonstone v Newport County would have been televised.

The Argus reported ahead of the match however, that for reasons not stated, the Football League had refused the BBC request to televise the match, though viewers would be treated to an FA Amateur Cup tie instead.

Millions still watch or listen to the draw for the third round of the FA Cup as it happens, and with good reason. This is where surviving non- and lower league teams and their fans may have their dreams of a tie against a team from the Premier League or the Championship come true.

Back in December 1948, the radio and the newspapers were the only way to find out who would play whom early in 1949, and the Argus reported on December 14 that County must travel to Yorkshire to face Leeds United.

Leeds were in Division Two, the equivalent then of their current Championship status, but this was team in the doldrums. Relegated from the top flight two seasons previously, it was to finish just two points above the relegation zone in 1948/49.

Nevertheless, this was a significant step up in the class of opponents for County, and having to travel appeared to make the task more onerous still.

County's Cup progress seemed to have benefited the club's league form however. They had won just three of their previous 19 league matches before the Leytonstone tie, but between the second the third rounds, including a 5-0 home win against Crystal Palace in front of more than 15,000 people on Christmas Day - how many festive lunchtimes were compromised for that one? - the team won four league matches in a row in the space of 15 days, with Carr, Parker and Comley in fine scoring fettle.

Eddie Carr - a regular scorer for County in 1948/49

In contrast, Leeds had won just two of their previous 10, and the Argus' pseudonymous sports writer 'Marlovian' wrote on January 5 of reports from Yorkshire of many Leeds fans' confidence ebbing away in the face of County's recent good form, and Leeds' sale of their inside left Ken Chisholm to Leicester City.

"They (the Leeds fans) now view Saturday's game with great anxiety," wrote Marlovian, who quoted Tom Bromilow in the same story as not having been impressed with the Leeds forwards' "finishing qualities".

Marlovian concluded by stating that County's prospects were "exceptionally bright" and that they stood a first class chance of "at least forcing a draw".

The South Wales Argus informs readers of centre forward Ray Parker's absence for the Leeds tie

Top scorer Parker, "the most disappointed player in English football", had to withdraw with bronchitis on the eve of the match, but "a number of County supporters" and railway staff gave the players who did travel an "enthusiastic" send-off to Leeds at Newport railway station, according to the Argus, and several hundreds of fans made the journey north.

Preparation were going swimmingly. Then, five hours before the kick-off, County were searching for a missing goalkeeper.

The tale of the missing goalkeeper, in the South Wales Argus, January 1949

Alick Grant did not come down for breakfast, and a teammate reported that the bed in his room had not been slept in. A search of the hotel eventually located him, asleep in another room, having mistaken the number.

Marlovian reported that Grant "was afterwards the victim of some good-natured leg-pulling, but that did not worry Alick, who has been known to while away the half-time interval by reading Byron's poems".

And in the end, the trip to Leeds was to prove, to quote Byron himself, "stranger than fiction".

Under the headline 'County's Brilliant Victory at Leeds Made Cup History', Marlovian described a 3-1 win at Elland Road, in front of a crowd of 31,500, that "again emphasised that Newport's lowly position in the Third Division gives a false representation of their football ability".

Quickly equalising through George Roffi after conceding an early goal, County seemingly put Leeds to the sword. In Marlovian's words, "their attacks were more brilliantly conceived, they finished stronger, and, apart from the first 10 minutes, their confidence was such that entry into the fourth round seemed a foregone conclusion".

Carr and Comley also scored again, and the players were mobbed by fans in their dressing room and on arrival back at Newport station.

The South Wales Argus hails an historic day for Newport County, January 1949

This was the first time the club had reached the fourth round, and what began as a dalliance with the FA Cup at the seaside in November had for club and fans become a full-blown romance.

But no-one had seen anything yet...