Apparently the FA Cup doesn't matter anymore.
Try telling that to Sutton United fans, whose club booked their place in the fifth round for the first time, beating Championship high-flyers Leeds United.
Try telling that to Millwall fans, who saw one of their favourites Steve Morison fire them to a fourth round win against Watford.
Try telling that to to the Oxford United players who stuffed Newcastle 3-0 on Saturday.
Try telling it to a long-suffering Wolves fan, who can now lord it over any of his Liverpool-supporting friends.
Try telling the Lincoln faithful at Sincil Bank that the FA Cup is dead and buried. They'll soon set you straight.
Players will realise when they retire that you don't get remembered for the league game that meant you finished 11th in Lg!#FACup
— Dean Ashton (@Dean36ashton10) January 29, 2017
The early rounds of the FA Cup may not be much of a draw for the big Premier League teams, who roll out their seemingly endless list of academy prospects with double-barrel surnames, but it doesn't mean the scalps are any less important to those who get them.
When Alan Power and Theo Robsinson tell their kids and grandkids about the day they scored in Lincoln's fourth round win against Brighton, they won't feel the need to tell them that Chris Hughton picked a second-string team.
It was a big weekend for the little guy, with three Premier League sides, and the top three teams in the Championship all falling to lower league opposition.
Some giant-killings are bigger than others, and the efforts of both Lincoln and Sutton could well earn them a money-spinning tie against one of the Premier League's big names.
Not to jinx Sutton: but two non-league teams have never made it to the FA Cup fifth round in same year (post-1945)
— Alan Smith (@alansmith90) January 29, 2017
To some, that stat will just be further proof that the competition's on its knees, and that the cup is just an unnecessary distraction from the Premier League.
But if we didn't have the FA Cup, we'd never have those Cinderella stories. Let's park the cynicism for a while.
