As Mail Sport reveals FA Cup replays are to be scrapped, MATT BARLOW asks… how could they deny us iconic moments like these?

English football is revving up its salami-slicer once more. Gone this time are Ronnie Radford and the most iconic goal of FA Cup history on the mud heap at Edgar Street.

Gone is Manchester City‘s pulsating fight back from 3-0 down with 10 men and a frenetic winner by Jon Macken at White Hart Lane, and a raucous night under the corrugated iron roofs of the Old Showground when Allan Clarke’s Scunthorpe United humbled Eddie Gray’s Leeds United.

Gone too, those transformational windfalls for clubs such as Exeter City, saved from extinction thanks to a replay won against Manchester United, which took Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney to Devon.

Burton Albion built their rise from non-league on a replayed tie against United a year later. Cambridge United were revived by the seven-figure jackpot from a trip to Old Trafford in 2015.

Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates scoring against Exeter in the FA Cup third round replay in 2005

Burton Albion built their rise from non-league on a replayed tie against Man United a year later

These are just a small sample of the storylines spun by FA Cup third and fourth round replays, which are set to be scrapped next season.

Another small step backwards by those meant to be protecting the oldest and most famous domestic cup competition in the world, beaten into submission. Another giant leap forward for the self-serving elite.

We have been drifting in this direction for years. There has not been an FA Cup final replay since 1993. Sheffield Wednesday and Arsenal proved the final straw, and there were few objections.

The third round tie in 1978-79 between Arsenal and Sheffield Wednesday went to four replays before the Gunners advanced

Wednesday and Arsenal have a history of endurance in the FA Cup. Their third round tie in 1978-79 went to four replays before the Londoners secured progress and went on to lift the trophy.

The Gunners were at it again a year later in a semi-final against Liverpool requiring three replays. Arsenal made it through again but this time lost in the final, against West Ham.

Multiple replays ended in 1990-91 and the last of the semi-final replays was a genuine classic, with Manchester United beating Arsenal at Villa Park on the way to the Treble in 1999.

Ryan Giggs, shirt off and chest-rug out is one of the defining images of Sir Alex Ferguson’s success at Old Trafford.

Ricky Villa scored one of the FA Cup final’s most iconic goals in the 1981 replay at Wembley as Tottenham defeated Manchester City. Spurs would win it again after a replay the following season.

Once geographical good sense was abandoned, however, and the semis moved from neutral club venues to Wembley to satisfy the demands of those selling bonds for the refurbished national stadium then any argument for replays at this stage was also lost.

One layer removed at a time. The quarter-finals lost their replays in 2016-17 and the fifth round, two years later, reinforced by adjustments made for the pandemic in 2020.

The fifth round ties served up some more memorable replays. Liverpool and Everton in 1991, a 4-4 draw after extra time at Goodison Park, endures as one of the greatest Merseyside derbies.

Argentine forward Ricky Villa (right, alongside Glenn Hoddle) scored one of the FA Cup final’s most iconic goals in the 1981 replay at Wembley as Tottenham defeated Manchester City

Villa wheels away in celebration with Spurs team-mates Garth Crooks (left) and Hoddle (right)

Scrapping the replays means getting rid of potential iconic moments such as Villa’s solo goal

In 1977-78, when Blyth Spartans of the Northern League held Wrexham, then chasing promotion from the old Division Three, at the Racecourse Ground, taking them to a replay at Newcastle’s St James’ Park.

Mail Sport’s Matt Barlow

It is night woven into the fabric of football in the North East. The official crowd was 42,167 but local legend dictates that thousands more poured in through the large wooden gates opened by those inside because Spartans had captured the imagination of the country.

The heroics of non-league Hereford United when Radford’s screamer and a goal by Ricky George beat Newcastle were still fresh in the mind. They went on to a fourth round tie against West Ham, which also went to a replay before it was settled by a Geoff Hurst hat-trick at Upton Park.

Three years later and Wimbledon, after knocking out top-flight Burnley, took Leeds to a replay and Dave Bassett tussled with Billy Bremner under the lights of Selhurst Park.

Those at the top of football will have you believe there are simply too many games. Something has to give, etc. What they really mean is too many games are failing to maximise profit.

Too many games are against teams from the lower echelons when they could be swanning off to Spain to play Barcelona and Real Madrid because they are the fixtures that make the broadcasters dig for an extra billion.

More European fixtures are in store next season with the expanded UEFA club competitions. More air miles, more emissions. More travel weariness worked in the muscles of the exhausted footballers.

Premier League clubs rejected a £900million financial settlement for the EFL earlier this week

Replays are a vital source of income to lower-league clubs, with Cambridge United pocketing over £1million from their visit to Old Trafford to face Manchester United back in 2015

There is the expansion of the Club World Cup next year and the 48-team World Cup in North America to follow the year after that.

Not to mention summer tours and exhibition games. Tottenham, one of 10 Premier League to reject the New Deal proposal designed to spread money more fairly through the football pyramid, are plotting a trip to Australia at the end of the season.

Chelsea, another of the 10, will cross the Atlantic to take on Wrexham in California in July, less than a fortnight after the final of Euro 2024.

They might not fancy a replay against fourth-tier opposition in the FA Cup but are up for another appearance on Disney Plus, 12 months after thrashing Wrexham 5-0 in Florida.

At the behest of greedy owners, most of our biggest clubs are so desperate for new horizons and new markets they forget to nourish the roots of our game.

All of this is most depressing, as eloquently explained by Exeter City chairman Nick Hawker as he reflected on their FA Cup tie against Manchester United, in 2005.

It went to a replay after a goalless draw at Old Trafford. United were forced to cancel a warm-weather training break and Ferguson sent out a strong team to face Exeter, then in the fifth tier and only just out of administration.

Hawker tells Mail Sport: ‘I often wondered if it really saved us. Undoubtedly, it allowed us to buy our way out of the CVA. Without that game, we certainly would not be supporter-owned. And would the club be here at all? I’m not sure it would be.

‘It was vitally important to Exeter City at that time but sometimes what gets lost and what our Premier League friends don’t always appreciate are that those games are really important to the pyramid.

Ronnie Radford (top left) celebrates with his Hereford team-mates after scoring one of the most famous goals in FA Cup history

‘Obviously, there’s a financial incentive because we can make as much money from those two games as we can from multiple games in the league but there’s also a philosophical argument.

‘These occasions breathe life into the pyramid. It is hard to place a value on that. For those who come to Exeter every week, it is a reward to see us play Chelsea, Arsenal or whoever.

‘When I think in general about English football, the FA Cup games loom large. Against Newcastle and Leicester and against Manchester United, not last time but the time before when Best, Charlton and Law came.

‘Even when Premier League come and play the reserves, there’s always a pang because I’d rather lose 6-0 to their first team than lose 1-0 or even beat their second string.

‘Those people who come to our games contribute to football in this country and it is a betrayal of their passion and enthusiasm. It is indicative of the top teams drifting away.

‘Above all else, it’s really, really sad because I’m not sure some of our younger fans have any sense of what the FA Cup was all about.’

Ryan Giggs scores his famous winner for United against Arsenal in the 1999 semi final replay

Fans avidly watch Manchester United take on Exeter from their windows during the 2005 tie

With European competitions expanding for top clubs, fear over fixture congestion has grown

Under pressure, the FA Cup has gotten itself into a bit of a tangle. There are replays in this round but not that one. There is VAR at this ground but not that one. Nobody knows when the draw might turn up.

Ties are all over the shop to maximise TV exposure. Third round Saturday has lost the thrilling buzz as the most exciting day in the calendar, a blur of results and you never knew where the big story might be.

Much of the charm has been eroded and now another layer is gone with the removal of replays from the most delightful stage of the competition, when the top clubs join those who have battled through the early rounds for the right to compete for the same prize.

Modernists might sneer but pandering to the Super League plotters with their pre-match light shows and choreographed anthems while they pump up ticket prices beyond the reach of the working man does not represent progress.