Doncaster Rovers v Crystal Palace: FA Cup fifth round – live!

2 mins: Doncaster are pressing hard from the off, not letting the bigger boys settle on the ball. Sensible, but they shouldn’t get giddy.

There’s a minute’s applause for Gordon Banks. If you missed it, here’s his obituary from these pages, as written by Brian Glanville.

Mike Dean has just given the respective captains – Milivojevic and Marquis – cool guy handshakes. Obviously.

The players are out onto the pitch. There’s a bit of a noise inside the Keepmoat, mainly from those excited Donny supporters but helped by that enthusiastic away following.

All getting a bit giddy in Donny.

Some pre-match reading: Louise Taylor went to speak to beponytailed big man up top John Marquis, about scoring goals with Doncaster and his previous career:

The young Marquis diversified, briefly, into modelling, promoting Rio Ferdinand’s clothing range. “I did a couple of shoots, hats, T-shirts, stuff like that. It was fun, a good experience and I still speak to Rio now and then but it’s behind me now, I prefer being on the pitch.”

Grant McCann speaks: “It’s obviously a huge task. It’s a great occasion for the fans: it’s for them, really. We’ll stick to our gameplan: if it’s good enough, brilliant, but if not at least we’ve had a go. The players will give everything they’ve got and make their families proud.”

Roy Hodgson speaks: “We’ve done well to get this far, and it will be another tough tie today. I think we’ve chosen a strong team: there were a couple of injuries, a few players unavailable to me, but this is as strong a team as I was hoping I could put out.”

Bit of a shame Mallik Wilks isn’t playing today because, as I believe people cooler than me say, he’s been ‘doing bits’ for Donny on loan from Leeds this season. He nearly was named, mind: he had been booked twice in the competition which should trigger a ban, but according to the Doncaster Free Press the club were sent a list of suspended players and he wasn’t on it.

However, they had a rummage through the rule books and said “Erm, are you absolutely sure about that?”, to which the authorities replied “oh yeah ur right he is banned soz lol.” I’m paraphrasing, but it would have been extremely interesting to see what would’ve happened had they relied on the initial reassurance and picked him.

Martin Brown sounds like he approves of the Palace line-up and, unless that’s a typo, the Palace manager too. He writes: “Godson has chosen Meyer which is a real fans choice. After the last game his link play with the forwards was ace. Good call. You should be aware big Palace Ultras turnout today. Palace allocation sold out btw. Good for the FA Cup.”

A pretty strong XI for Palace, then. A few changes, with Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Mamadou Sakho given the afternoon off, Wayne Hennessey back in nets while of course Wilf Zaha is suspended, but other than that it’s more or less the best team Roy Hodgson could have picked, beyond some Benteke/Batshuayi-related hair-splitting.

Doncaster Rovers

Marosi; Blair, Downing, Anderson, Andrew; Whiteman, Kane, Crawford; May, Marquis, Coppinger. Subs: Jones, Wright, Butler, Rowe, Sadlier, Boocock, Lewis.

Crystal Palace

Hennessey; Ward, Kelly, Dann, Van Aanholt; Meyer, Milivojevic; Schlupp, Townsend, Ayew; Batshuayi. Subs: Guaita, Woods, Tomkins, Riedewald, MacArthur, Kouyate, Benteke.

Referee: Michael Dean (Wirral)

What were you doing in 1956? I would wager that for many of you, not only were you not alive, but perhaps your parents were still twinkles too. But if you were around back then, you might be able to remember the last time Doncaster Rovers were at this stage of the FA Cup. Simply by showing up Grant McCann’s side have equalled their best ever performance in the old cup, last achieved back in a bygone era. That time they were a second tier team whereas now they’re in the third, but just like 63 years ago they face a top division team. Today, it’s Crystal Palace. Then, it was Tottenham, Danny Blanchflower and all, who would go on to lose in the semi-final to eventual winners Manchester City, in the Bert Trautmann final.

Back then rotation wasn’t really a thing, even the finest teams treating lower league sides with due caution. But now there are bigger, more financially onerous imperatives, so the Premier League’s finest tend to stick shadow teams out when they have to lower themselves to the scruffy lot.

And yet, this season they don’t really have an excuse. Four of the big six Premier League teams will be out of the tournament by the time the quarter-finals come around, so there could be a clear path through to the semis, possibly even the final. Surely Mr Roy must put out his best and brightest (which admittedly this season is a relative term), rather than pratting around with the reserves? Surely?

“My hope would be that we continue to cherish the FA Cup, we continue to value it and we don’t consistently make comparisons because these competitions are what they are and they also have their importance,” he said this week. We’ll find out how much he cherishes it shortly.

Kick-off: 16.00 GMT