“He treated us as second-class citizens.” That, however, was more than Newcastle managed to do.. Aston Villa 0

Coventry City 1
Moldovan 72Attendance: 36,979THE Sky Blue bandwagon is starting to roll towards Wembley again, sweeping all manner of historical quirks from its path. This was Coventry’s first victory at Villa Park and while Viorel Moldovan, their record signing, was doubtless unaware of the historical significance of his 71st-minute goal, a place in the last eight was no less than Coventry deserved.”I wanted to see if it really was a hoodoo here,” Gordon Strachan, the Coventry manager, said. Newcastle United 1

Shearer 22
Tranmere Rovers 0Attendance: 36,675THERE was no place in the history books for Tranmere at the end of their 90 minutes at St James’ Park yesterday. A first appearance in the FA Cup quarter-finals proved beyond the grasp of the Welsh Cup winners of 1935. But only just.John Aldridge watched frustratedly from the bench as his team of First Division strugglers subjected Newcastle United to yet another uncomfortable ride on the road to Wembley.

Kenny Dalglish’s side stumbled onwards, thanks to their pounds 15m man.Having spared Newcastle’s blushes in the last round, Alan Shearer emerged as their goalscoring saviour once again. His fourth goal in three ties dragged the Magpies through to the last eight, by the very claw-ends of their feet If their name is written on the Cup it must be in crayon. As in the third round at Everton and in the fourth round against Stevenage, Newcastle never showed the glint of potential trophy winners.Not that Dalglish could care “Performances in Cup ties are irrelevant,” he said. “It was good enough to get us into the next round.” It was tough, though, on Tranmere and their manager, who scored one of the goals that gave Dalglish his last FA Cup final success, as manager of Liverpool in 1989. “We deserved a draw,” Aldridge lamented.It was only the second time Tranmere had reached the fifth round.

On that occasion, 30 years ago, Johnny Morrissey scored one of the goals which halted their run at Goodison Park. Yesterday his son, John, was on the left wing for a Rovers team who from first to last whistle had more than a prayer.They almost delivered the first blow in the opening minute, Dave Challinor showing why he has a place in the Guinness Book of Records with a throw- in from half-way that did not quite match his measured best of 46 metres but gave David Kelly a good sniff at the Newcastle goal.It was into the very same Leazes End net that Kelly shot the goal that saved Newcastle from Third Division football in 1992, a late winner against Portsmouth described by Kevin Keegan as “good enough to win the European Cup”. Shearer’s header bounced down and over him after Newcastle’s most striking asset rose to meet Alessandro Pistone’s cross from the left in the 22nd minute.It was the only damage the hosts managed to inflict upon Tranmere, for whom Morrissey, John McGreal and Andy Parkinson all came tantalisingly close to equalising in the second-half. Kelly hooked his shot wide but Challinor’s throws continued to trouble the home guard.Not until the 20th minute did Newcastle show anything like Premier pedigree They did so, unsurprisingly, in the shape of Shearer. Dispatching an angled drive from the right edge of the area, the England centre- forward was thwarted by Tranmere’s coveted 18-year-old goalkeeper, Steve Simonsen, a lifelong Sunderland fan whose proudest possession is said to be the videotape of the 1973 FA Cup final featuring Jimmy Montgomery’s heroics.Eight minutes before the break the teenage prodigy conjured a save half as good as Montgomery’s celebrated Wembley double against Trevor Cherry and Peter Lorimer, springing skywards some 15 yards from goal to push a Robert Lee chip over his cross-bar By then, however, Simonsen had been beaten. To the audible relief of the Toon Army, the Tranmere captain was unable to produce a finish of similar quality.

This was good news for the taxi driver ferrying Martin Bell, the only British skier anyone has heard of, to Shepherds Bush every night, and also, to judge by the grins on their faces, for the rest of the presenters. Why? Because in its place, they could bring us more curling.It was enough to make you take up snowboarding Or at any rate, indulge in a bit of apres-board.. He would, he insisted, have been delighted to jump in Japan, although his initial estimate of a “top 10″ finish contracted fairly rapidly into “not last”. Indeed, he reckoned he would have been there, had it not been for the fact that all 14 of the qualifying competitions he had been hoping to enter had been cancelled.

Funny that.Cancellation, as it happens, was something of a theme all week, as numerous attempts to stage the men’s downhill floundered beneath the weight of snow. It appeared to have been dreamt up by someone whose only previous contact with Japan was via an unhealthy passion for Godzilla flicks, which had left them convinced that everything in the Land of the Rising Sun is plastic and unconvincing.It was at least an appropriate backdrop for Edward “Don’t Call Him The Eagle, It Only Encourages Him” Edwards, who was wheeled out to offer an informed opinion on the ski-jumping.This, of course, is like seating a Hackney Marshes clogger between Des and Alan to comment on the World Cup final, but it did allow us an entertaining insight into the twilight zone of undeserved celebrity that is Eddie’s existence. And once we had grasped the basics, it was on to the finer points. “At the risk of offending curling aficionados [God forbid],” Donnelly revealed, “sweeping doesn’t make the stone go faster, but it does mean that it doesn’t slow down so quickly.” Dougie, it seems, had been spending rather more time with the snowboarders than is good for him.And so, for that matter, had whoever designed the set over which the presenters attempted to drape themselves. “The essence of the strategy in its simplest terms,” he advised sagely, “is that when you are winning the game you want to play it in the house, and when you are losing you will try to play the game in front of the house.