An Italian saves the FA Cup
When a day longer than his sideburns had finally drawn to a close it was Paolo di Canio who supplied the enduring image.
With leather-gloved fingers pointing to the heavens and a snug olive-green jacket fastened over his scarf he may have looked like a TV cop from the early Eighties but this was a moment of pure FA Cup passion.
Good old, slightly bonkers Paolo, posturing on the touchline to remind the nation that few moments in football can generate emotion quite like a genuine FA Cup upset.
Fourth tier beat first at the County Ground, one of four shocks (the others: Crawley, Notts County and Stevenage) on a day which had opened in mind-numbing fashion at St Andrew's.
Seriously, who at ESPN thought Birmingham versus Wolves was a good place to start, with its weakened teams and empty seats?
‘Nil-nil was inevitable,' said Blues defender Curtis Davies. Really? If only he'd told us sooner.
The day's other early kick-off passed without a goal, although this was a terrific effort by Dagenham and Redbridge, who slipped to 90th in football's pyramid during the day but can look forward to a trip to, ahem, Millwall.
Three o'clock approached, team news emerged and it was hard not to feel a pang of sadness for this noble trophy.
Tottenham, the only one of the top six in action, made 10 changes, wary of Wednesday's game against Everton in the Barclays Premier League.
Cardiff changed 10 and Crystal Palace seven ahead of their meeting in the first leg of the Carling Cup semi-final on Tuesday.
The numbers on Palace's shirts added up to more than 300, according to someone on Twitter.
Wigan made nine changes and they don't play again until next Monday.
Of the two TV companies with rights to the action, one showed Catwoman and the other a documentary on baseball as Matt Le Tissier and Charlie Nicholas watched League Two football in Sky's Soccer Saturday studio.
Some despair was chased away during the next two hours as 73 goals were scored in the 23 ties that kicked off at 3pm with Wigan, Reading, Bristol City and Doncaster humbled by opposition from lower leagues.
The FA Cup made its case for staying alive during the 21st century as Vinnie Jones - a Wembley winner in 1988 - taught the nation how to administer ‘Hands Only CPR' to the sounds of the Bee Gees during the ad breaks.
John Murray conjured classic images on BBC 5 Live with his wonderful commentary on a thrilling tie and a party atmosphere at Moss Rose, where Macclesfield held Bolton.
‘There are almost 2,000 Bolton fans in there and I can see a crocodile at the front,' said Murray, straining to be heard above the din of an old-style wooden rattle, just as BBC World Service listeners joined the broadcast.
Macc Town were going global and they did not disappoint.
MUM'S THE WORD..........
After his hat-trick v Fleetwood, Blackpool's Matt Phillips says he'll give the ball to his mum - so she can protect it with hairspray
In Kent, Gillingham chairman Paul Scally had set the tone by re-opening a festering feud with Tony Pulis, saying the only place he wanted to bury a hatchet was in the Stoke manager's head.
‘I'll never forgive Tony Pulis,' said Scally, who sacked the visiting manager in 1999 for gross misconduct, on Sky before the match. ‘He affected me, my family and this football club.'
Gills took the lead but Stoke fielded a strong team (funny that) and Premier League power proved too great.
Other dreams were wrecked early. Tamworth responded to a Football Focus pep-talk from Martin Keown by leaking a goal in five minutes at Everton from which they would never recover.
Cheltenham conceded early at Tottenham and Fleetwood and Salisbury slipped behind.
By half-time, only two teams were ahead against opposition from a higher tier with League One pair Stevenage and Notts County winning away against Championship teams.
Wrexham are the only non-Leaguers into the fourth round draw, fighting back at Brighton with a goal which triggered a glorious passage of FA Cup romance.
It was 4.23pm when the Blue Square Premier leaders levelled with a goal from Adrian Cieslewicz.
Within a minute, Arnaud Mendy had fired Macclesfield 2-1 up and by 4.26pm MK Dons were beating Queens Park Rangers 1-0 with a Dean Bowditch goal.
Paul Benson pounced for Swindon's winner at 4.34pm, roughly the same time Matt Tubbs was scoring for Crawley against Bristol City and Jeff Hughes scored his second for Notts County at Doncaster.
Then, the Premier League hit back. David Wheater equalised for Bolton with 13 minutes left and Heidar Helguson eased pressure on Neil Warnock with two minutes to spare.
Fulham (full strength) crushed League One leaders Charlton at Craven Cottage as Danny Murphy's wife Joanna Taylor used Twitter to report how abuse from visiting fans forced her and son Ethan to seek refuge in the directors' box.
Only two top-flight clubs would crash out on Saturday. Wigan, at Swindon, and Blackburn, who took the lead at Newcastle but lost to a goal from Jonas Gutierrez in the 94th minute.
On BBC's Final Score, Mark Chapman winced on behalf of Steve Kean when Gutierrez scored. The most anguished of callers on the evening's radio phone-ins supported Wigan and Ipswich (beaten 3-1 at Hull), while Bristol Rovers' defeat seemed to be going down well at the Memorial Stadium, where John Barnes and Kevin Keegan predicted Aston Villa's easy win.
Barnes pointed out that the upsets are usually produced by small teams in form, not the likes of Rovers, who prepared for their big day on live television by sacking manager Paul Buckle.
It is an era where the elite have more money, bigger squads, fitter players, better facilities and more thorough preparation techniques. There should be fewer shock results yet complacency still eats away in different forms.
Perhaps it comes from the manager who makes changes and sends a subliminal message around his players - and if a slip like this collides with a spirited team, it will produce sparks.
This is the FA Cup staying alive without the need for CPR, thanks to Di Canio and his ilk.
So in the end the FA Cup has provided us with thrills and spills all weekend long. We cast our eyes over what will live long in the memory and what we'll want to forget...
5 HEROES:
PAOLO di CANIO: Italian passion revives an English institution. Hands up who thought he would cut it as a manager. Honestly.
PAUL BENSON: OK, so it hit him. He was offside. And it was only Wigan reserves. But try telling that to the rest of Swindon.
JOSE VEIGA: Late save by the Cape Verde islander denied Ivan Klasnic, earned Macclesfield a replay and ensured Arnaud Mendy's sweet strike counted for something.
HATEM BEN ARFA: It was gone midnight before it got on to ITV's highlights show but it was worth waiting up for a goal described by Newcastle manager Alan Pardew as the greatest ever.....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5KafuOcyn4
ADRIAN CIESLEWICZ: Born in Poland, raised in the Faroe Islands and secured Wrexham a replay in Wales with an equaliser at Brighton.
5 VILLAINS:
DAVID MARTIN: Perhaps a hero at Loftus Road but the MK Dons keeper's 88th-minute howler gifted Heidar Helguson an equaliser.
DANNY WEBB: Not quite what the son of Chelsea FA Cup winner Dave Webb hoped for as he scored an own goal during Salisbury's 3-1 defeat at Sheffield United.
PAUL SCALLY: Gillingham's chairman stirred up the wrong kind of pre-match rivalry with an attack on former manager Tony Pulis and banned him from parts of the Priestfield Stadium.
STEPHEN PEARSON: Celebrated last week's permanent transfer from Derby to Bristol City with a red card at Crawley.
COLIN DOYLE: A superb double save in added time means another episode of Birmingham and Wolves. Don't even think about it, ESPN.
3 HAT-TRICKS:
Clint Dempsey (Fulham) Matt Phillips (Blackpool) Simon Cox (WBA)
BAD CROWD:
Are West Bromwich Albion fans losing their boing? Fewer than 13,000 turned up to see them beat Cardiff.
GOOD CROWD:
A full house at Spurs. Cheltenham have never played in front of a bigger crowd in their 125-year history and their 5,000 fans were not deterred by a resounding defeat.
Another FA Cup gaffe by ITV after fans are left without commentary:
ITV were forced to apologise after the opening stages of the live FA Cup match between Peterborough and Sunderland were aired without commentary.
The voices of commentator Peter Drury and analyst Jim Beglin could only be heard after eight minutes in the latest error from the broadcaster.
Although the sound of the action and fans were audible from London Road, the coverage was missing Drury and Beglin early on.
When they finally appeared, Drury was forced to open with an apology for the hundreds of thousands of fans watching at home and in the pub. ITV came in for huge flak from viewers, with many taking to Twitter to hit out at the station.
Already under fire for what was considered a poor highlights programme on Saturday night, ITV found themselves on the backfoot again.
One tweeter said: 'Twinned with the horrendous highlights show last night, this farce reminds me of why I hope ITV never gets any football rights ever.'
It is the latest FA Cup gaffe to hit the channel. The broadcaster infamously missed Dan Gosling's extra-time winner for Everton against rivals Liverpool in 2009 after cutting to an advert break.
And a year earlier ITV bosses were left red-faced after Histon's historic FA Cup giant-killing against Leeds was marred by swearing and full-frontal nudity.
At the last World Cup, fans watching England's opening group game against the United States in HD, missed Steven Gerrard's goal after the channel cut to an advert. "