FA Cup: Heroes who weren't wanted
Long-standing defender Jason Cousins today paved the way for Wycombe’s remarkable passage to the semi-finals of the FA Cup - only seven years after nearly being kicked out of the club altogether.
The 30-year-old centre-back was outstanding at the heart of the Chairboys’ defence as Laurie Sanchez’s makeshift side tore up the form book to overcome Leicester and progress into the last four of the world’s most famous club competition.
Roy Essandoh’s injury-time winner handed the Second Division side a 2-1 victory over their Premiership opponents as their remarkable season continued in dramatic style.
Cousins, who joined Wycombe 10 years ago, joined Jamie Bates in central defence to lock out the Peter Taylor’s Premiership high-fliers at Filbert Street and seal the greatest day in Wycombe’s 27-year professional history.
The result represents a victory in particular for three players who have been at Adams Park since promotion from the old Vauxhall Conference in 1993 - three players indeed who are each older than the club itself.
Cousins, Dave Carroll and Keith Ryan have over 800 appearances for the club since joining from Brentford, Ruislip Manor and Berkhamstead respectively - but they freely admit they have only done so because no other club will have them.
"We’ve given pretty good service to this club but, in truth, no one else wants us," joked Cousins. "That’s why we keep signing."
Wanderers now go into the semi-final draw knowing that one more victory will give them a place in the final having previously not bettered the third round.
And that represents a remarkable turnaround in particular for Cousins, a player whose career was on the rocks during the 1993-94 season.
Cousins joins Ryan and Carroll in being the players still at Adams Park to have served under former boss Martin O’Neill.
And Cousins may well have been lost to league football without a severe dressing down from O’Neill, Peter Taylor’s predecessor at Leicester, during the Chairboys’ first season after promotion from the Conference.
Cousins was stripped of the club captaincy, banned from the ground for a week and fined seven days’ wages as well as being hauled naked out of the dressing room after a sending-off at Doncaster.
It proved an invaluable lesson for the player, as he has gone on to make more than 250 league appearances for the club.
"I have always had an excellent relationship with Martin, but my one regret was that horror challenge in our first season in the Football League.
"What didn’t help was that I had been sent off for hand-ball the previous week.
"Just before half-time I was showering away, and he came steaming in," Cousins recalled.
"I was obviously stark naked. He threw me out of the shower and out of the changing rooms.
"I was left out in the corridor with nothing on, soap in my eyes, and he ended up banning me from the club for a week.
"Some sections of the supporters wanted me thrown out of the club altogether it was quite a nasty tackle and something that I deeply regret."
The crunching clash with Dave Moss probably did more good than bad for Cousins’ career longevity, however.
His four-game absence left him to reflect on his misdemeanours and he has twice been voted player of the year since that day.
Martin O’Neill has of course gone on to greater things with Leicester and now at a revitalised Celtic - but Cousins remembers the Northern Irishman more as the man who saved his career.
Now Cousins, alongside his erstwhile partners in the Wycombe defence, will be hoping that a day out in Cardiff awaits them in May.
