I recently found out that my family history dated back to 1615 to a town in Northamptonshire County , UK called Sulgrave. I was really excited to learn of my history and even more excited when I realized that this gave me the perfect opportunity to really have a football club to support. I looked at the map and found the closest professional club was Northampton Town FC, a mere 20 miles away. Never heard of them? Of course not - they're not in the English Premier League. Not the League Championship. Not even Football league 1. Nope, they are in the UK's 4th highest league, Football League 2. I was very happy. After all, it's one thing to support a big club. It's another thing to support a little guy. Now I know I will never be even half the fan that the Cobblers' hometown fans are, but I am doing my best to support them from afar with no video access.
Anyways, the point of this entry is that Wednesday is a big day for Northampton Town FC. They travel to Anfield to get a shot at one of the world's most popular and successful teams, Liverpool. Now this isn't any sort of friendly - this is a real game in a real competition, the Carling Cup. The Carling Cup is a single elimination competition, like the more known FA Cup, of the top 92 teams in the top 4 divisions in England. It represents one of the special aspects of European soccer, one that American fans don't understand. You may ask, why compete in a competition mid-season that could lead to injuries? It would never happen in baseball or basketball. Certainly not in American football. And that is a shame, because tournaments like these allow for the David vs Goliath matchups like Liverpool v Northampton Town FC. If they were to play 1000 times Northampton Town might be able to win twice. But guess what, one of those two times could be tomorrow. It's a big day.
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