Every so often there are moments in the FA Cup that remind us all why this old trophy, for all its detractors, remains a treasured institution and how football is still the most intoxicating, emotive and captivating sport of all.
Under leaden skies in the east midlands, as the players of Wycombe Wanderers cavorted in the glorious afterglow of the club's finest hour, it was apparent that this was such an occasion.
In those exhilarating, light-headed moments it was a time for pure emotion to take over. Steve Brown wiped tears from his eyes. Alan Parry, the television commentator and Wycombe director, embraced the players, kissing Paul McCarthy's hand and bowing in honour to Martin Taylor.
Like a Japanese day-tripper, the assistant manager, Terry Gibson, was frantically taking snaps from a pocket camera. And there in the middle, Roy Essandoh, the most unlikely hero, was posing for the press photographers, his toothy grin exposed by a thousand and one flash bulbs.
It was almost two minutes into stoppage time when this Belfast-born Ghanaian, with a most exquisite sense of timing, headed in his late, earth-shaking winner. When the dust settles, it will not be hours and minutes that matter, March 10th will be remembered.
The FA Cup may have suffered in recent years, but its capacity to throw up tales of the unexpected is clearly limitless. Essandoh's agent contacted Wycombe after reading on Teletext they were in the market for a stopgap striker.
Even so, he was given a contract for two weeks only because Lawrie Sanchez could not tempt Gianluca Vialli or Ian Wright to interrupt their retirement. And when he stepped off the bench with 17 minutes remaining, most of his new team-mates were struggling to remember his name. "He just turned up during the week and, to be honest, I couldn't even tell you who he is," confessed McCarthy.
Yet with one act of joyous heroism Essandoh, answering an SOS for a club with six strikers injured, had instigated the most raucous merriment in Buckinghamshire since Sir Francis Dashwood's Hellfire club in West Wycombe Caves.
"The guy on television had to ask me how I pronounced my name," he smiled afterwards. Essandoh's deal is due to end on Wednesday and as yet it is unknown if he will be at the club when they take on Liverpool.
Gerard Houllier's team and Sunderland have both found Leicester's defence an impregnable barrier recently, but the team 60th in the professional ladder not only breached it twice but out-thought, out-manoeuvred and, at times, out-fought their hosts.
By the time McCarthy stooped to head Brown's cross beyond Simon Royce early in the second half, a weight of foreboding was already descending upon Leicester.
The real drama, however, was yet to come. Once Muzzy Izzet had rounded off a neatly worked equaliser, the Second Division side might have been expected to keel over. Yet still they kept on pressing, sniffing out openings and busying themselves in attack, only to be denied the most cast-iron penalty when Stefan Oakes was clearly culpable of handling Brown's cross.
Sanchez's touch-line histrionics evoked memories of some of Martin O'Neill's maddest moments on the same turf, but referee Steve Bennett was unimpressed. He banished him from the dug-out and reported him yesterday to the Football Association. First and foremost, the powers-that-be should take issue with the assistant referee who, 15 yards away from the offence, inexplicably declined to raise his flag.
All of which meant Sanchez watched the subsequent drama unfold from a television monitor, and he was pacing the floor when Dannie Bulman spun a deep cross into the Leicester penalty area. Jamie Bates headed across goal and, with one twisting leap and header, Essandoh had entered FA Cup lore.
Wycombe, from a dormitory town more famous for its furniture than football, are one match away from Cardiff and becoming the first Second Division side ever to reach an FA Cup final.
Leicester: Royce, Impey, Guppy, Rowett, Taggart, Elliott, Izzet, Savage (Eadie 61), Oakes, Sturridge (Benjamin 75), Akinbiyi (Gunnlaugsson 76). Subs Not Used: Andrews, Jones. Booked: Savage, Oakes. Goals: Izzet 68.
Wycombe: Taylor, Townsend, Bates, Cousins, McCarthy, Vinnicombe (Lee 87), Bulman, Simpson, Brown, Ryan (Castledine 74), Clegg (Essandoh 74). Subs Not Used: Osborn, Johnson. Sent Off: Brown (90). Booked: Cousins, Brown, Simpson. Goals: McCarthy 50, Essandoh 90.
Referee: S Bennett (Orpington).
