Nothing sets the sports boys at the BBC going so much as a Saturday afternoon of old-fashioned romance. The Beeb is an institution with core values founded on sturdy, wartime sensibilities and so it revels in the tale of improbable sporting triumph, some comicbook manifestation rich in the notion that village England and Churchillian spirit still flourishes. With its diminishing portfolio, the FA Cup has become emblematic of everything the BBC believes sport should be about. The station's presenters reflect that: it's hard to believe that Gary Lineker, the BBC's soccer frontman, is of the same era as Paul Gascoigne. Lineker looks as if he spent those few hours of his youth when he wasn't doing good turns for old people sharing liquorice with The Secret Seven. He smiles out at us benignly from behind Des Lynam's old desk, handsome, decent and somehow instinctively honourable.
He doesn't have the fabled Lynam glint, that suggestion that given a few brandys and the right circumstances he could be a bit of an old fox. Lynam was James Bond but in cosy slippers, perfect for the 1970s and '80s. Lineker's persona is tailored to these more sleek and politically confined times. He carries Lynam's legacy, though, in his genuine appreciation for occasions such as Saturday when Wycombe Wanderers, "giant-killers" of this year's cup, went to face mighty Leicester at Filbert street.
As if being handicapped with a heritage based on wandering around Wycombe's byways wasn't adversity enough, we learned that the second division side was injury stricken and were fielding, according to Tony Gubba, "a team of understudies".
Gubba, clearly ecstatic to be given the role of commentating on an epic so brimming with Biblical resonance, quickly set about clarifying the impossibility of Wycombe's task.
"You have to sympathise with the plight of Townsend," he sighed, "faced with confining the wing-play of Steve Guppy."
He predicted the Wycombe lads would be quivering at the mere mention of "names such as (Matt) Elliot, (Muzzy) Izzet and (Dean) Sturridge".
Then, as the whistle sounded, came the sentence he must have been practising as he shaved in front of the mirror that morning: "Let us hope, for Wycombe football that this dream . . . does not become . . . a nightmare."
But this was an afternoon in a competition haunted by the spirit of old Roy from Melchester. Real life counts for nothing. It began to rain heavily because almost all sporting upsets occur in the midst of a mud bath. Hence, when Ireland's Paul McCarthy knocked home the first one for Wycombe, the camera could close in as he lay back in a penalty-area puddle to celebrate with his delighted team-mates.
It became evident this was going to be one of those soccer afternoons that needed no hyperbole or flashy camera angles. It was what Sky TV was not about. The polemics were clear. In years to come, Wycombe's cup run might be regarded as a last stand for soccer's impoverished regional clubs, those so-called "minnows" who keep playing because, well, that's what they have always done.
Leicester aren't representative of the more grotesque excesses of the Premiership, indeed they probably share Wycombe's belief in grafting. But still, when they fly, it's in first class.
The ease with which Leicester cut through Wycombe's honest if labouring defence illustrated how they could - or perhaps should - have dispensed with their opponents. But this was sport as defined by personality and one man's character shone through the rain and mud. Lawrie Sanchez has changed little since his glory goal against Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup final.
In pre-game and post-match interviews, he came across as intelligent, spiky, resourceful and passionate. That also came to the fore during the match when he felt his team ought to have been rewarded a penalty.
"That's b*****ks," he explained to the linesman. "F****ing b*****ks."
"That decision could have cost us one million pounds," he would say on Saturday evening.
"The linesman just shrugs his shoulder but that could have mattered to my career."
His protests though, earned him banishment to the dressing-room and it was somewhere under the stand in Filbert street that he observed what Gubba described as "the wonder story of the FA Cup".
Of course, the giant-killers made one more slaying. Naturally, the winner came in injury-time. And the hero was one Roy Essendoah who found his way to Wycombe after "answering an appeal on the club website for players".
Essendoah was, we were informed, an Irish-Ghanaian born in Belfast, wandering - in true Wycombe fashion - across Finland and Austria in search of games.
"He has come on today, made himself a hero and we'll look to extend his contract for at least a week," smiled Sanchez.
For the manager, who is imbued with a stubborn disregard for the big names, it was all about invoking "some of the spirit of '88". It was about subtly giving two fingers to the establishment, to those who see Wycombe football as something quaint when it is mostly about pennies and headaches and survival.
It had to be bittersweet, of course, with Wycombe's Steve Brown sent off for taking off his jersey so the camera could pick up his son's name written on his teeshirt. This was a once-in-a-lifetime day for Brown. And who was the Wycombe fan carrying the little cardboard cup wrapped in silver foil?
Sanchez noted afterwards he really hadn't seen Essendoah since the newcomer scored the winner.
"We'll have to take a roll call the next day," he laughed.
How perfect it would be if the Wanderer's new boy simply disappeared again. Maybe cup romance is his speciality and he knew that it simply wouldn't get any better. Here's hoping that Roy is hitching a lift somewhere in Finland right now, his boots tied to his bag.
