Everyone talks about the magic of the FA Cup as an abstract concept, but we got around to quantifying it.
The FA Cup is about one thing and one thing only: the Magic™ of the Cup. It can be found in those foil-covered replicas and heroic montages. It can be heard in the clickity-clack of balls in a velvet bag. It tingles in the back of your neck and the frozen, clawed fingers of your hands.
Wherever two friends come together to watch knock-out football, there too is the Magic™, along with a nearby BBC reporter gasping "This is it! It is happening! We are having Magic™!"
Mostly, of course, Magic™ is the shocks and the upsets. The fifth round just gone gave us a particularly exciting range of surprising results, and so we've ranked them in descending order of Magicality™. No, that's not a word. No, it doesn't matter.
Sutton United 1-0 Leeds United
Simple, pure, elegant. The platonic form of the FA Cup shock. A non-league side on a cold day, at a small ground called "Gander Green Lane." An opponent of considerable reputation, but with players who looked confused by the whole business — "These people have … other jobs?" — and a manager who spent the entire game gazing into the middle distance thinking of loss and regret. A penalty, dispatched firmly into the corner of the net. And a pitch invasion that not even the hardest of hearts could dislike.
Magic™ rating: Dai Vernon's Symphony of the Rings. Smooth, beautiful, and prestidigitastic.
Liverpool 1-2 Wolverhampton Wanderers
As well as being inherently Magical™, all FA Cup shocks are at least a little bit funny, because laughter is a perfectly acceptable response to the universe throwing up something strange. And the same is true of big teams getting turned over at home: it's not just Magical™, but also funny, on the same principle that directs custard pies into the faces of the powerful.
As such, when both happen, and it's on television and everybody's watching, it's Magic™ multiplied by (funny x funny). We're not mathematicians, but that looks like a pretty big number to us. And Wolves get bonus points for undercutting the "Liverpool played the kids" angle by picking a child in goal.
Magic™ rating: Houdini (Paul Lambert) making an elephant (Liverpool) disappear (lose at football).
Lincoln City 3-1 Brighton & Hove Albion
According to Gary Lineker, this would have been on television had the evil masterminds at the FA not insisted that the BBC stick with their original choice and broadcast Manchester United. So Lincoln's Magical™ second half comeback could only be enjoyed through the radio, highlights, match reports, and the excitable stories of those present. This gives the whole thing a pleasingly old-fashioned air, and will in no way be ruined by their inevitable hammering at the hands of Manchester City next round.
Magic™ rating: Impish.
Millwall 1-0 Watford
Watford's slow collapse into crisis should not be the focus here, and nor, if we're being honest, should the Magic™. Fun as that was. No, this was the first game after it became clear that Millwall, for the time being, have fought off the attentions of predatory property developers and will be staying at the New Den. A victory achieved not through Magical™ means, but through hard work, community spirit, collective action, and some decent investigative journalism.
Such fine work deserved an opponent as politely dysfunctional as this Watford side.
Magic™ rating: Roll up! Roll up! In just a few weeks time, The Amazing Pozzo will make the beautiful Walter disappear!
Fulham 4-1 Hull City
While Hull undoubtedly have bigger things on their mind than the FA Cup, such as Premier League survival and the burdens that come with being the UK's 2017 City of Culture, this was still quite the implosion. And as beautiful moments of farce go, it's hard to beat the rarely-seen twice-baked penalty miss: Hull's Abel Hernandez has his first spot-kick saved, was fouled by the keeper as he pursued the rebound, and then had his second attempt saved again. Just as well Magic™ is supposed to be difficult to explain.
Magic™ rating: That David Blaine one where he sat in a box for ages, and the people of London taunted him with burgers suspended from toy helicopters.
Oxford United 3-0 Newcastle United
Missed penalties seem to be a recurring ingredient in cup shocks. Perhaps there's a symbolic power to them, a sense that something strange is happening. Newcastle's Alexander Mitrovic is a professional football player, theoretically a specialist at scoring goals. Give him a still ball, an unmolested run up, and a goalkeeper required to stick to the line … there's no way he should miss. Right? Oh dear.
Magic™ rating: Happily for this entire conceit, when Rafa Benitez's sides are playing badly he looks quite a lot like a children's entertainer who has lost the room, is trying to win it back by waving coloured handkerchiefs around, and is about to discover that one of his shoes is full of jelly.
Tottenham Hotspur 4-3 Wycombe Wanderers
Ah, Wycombe. Oh, Tottenham. Magic™ so cruelly dangled, then so rudely snatched away. Of course, the fact that Spurs came back from a goal down with a minute left and only ten men on the pitch is impressive, but this is the FA Cup. If the team higher up the pyramid wins, then evil has triumphed and Magic™ has lost. Don't bother clapping your hands, kids. The fairies aren't coming back. Heung Min-Son killed them.
Magic™ rating: Houdini again, with a less conventional "trick" which involved people punching him really hard in the stomach. Sadly, the last time it happened he wasn't fully prepared for it, his appendix exploded a few days later, and he died.
Manchester United 4-0 Wigan Athletic
For 42 minutes, it looked as though this game might end up somewhere Magical™ as Manchester United shambled around like it was the glory days of Louis van Gaal. Then Bastian Schweinsteiger looked up, noticed that Marouane Fellaini is very tall, and bounced the ball off his head and into the net. Out fizzled the Magic™, and through went United. Most disappointing.
Magic™ rating: Gob Bluth