Sheffield United fan column: One important goal will change views on Gary Madine

Gary Madine this week signed on loan from Cardiff City

To get knocked out of the FA Cup by a non-league team does not carry the stigma it once did, but it still should not have happened.

The FA Cup started losing its glamour with the advent of the Premier League, Sky TV and the Champions League in the early 1990s, when certain big clubs decided that finishing fourth was more important than winning the cup, and loads of smaller clubs decided that, for them, staying in the Premier League was preferable to winning silverware.

And today non-league teams are fitter, faster and better organised than they were in the 70s and 80s.

They are also stocked with players, such as the irrepressible Shaquile Coulthirst, who grew up in Premier League academies and learned from a young age the right way to do things.

But it still should never have happened, given the quality of the United starting XI. Only Simon Moore did not discredit himself.

Next we come to Gary Madine.

The player we loved to call 'Washing Machine' and boo like hell is now one of us.

Blades fans are generally a more accepting lot than they were when Terry Curran signed for United in 1982, and since then we have had plenty of ex-Wednesday players, some of whom (Alan Quinn, Leigh Bromby, Derek Geary, Leon Clarke) have been great successes.

If anyone is sceptical, one important goal will tip the scales.

Finally, the allegation of racial abuse towards a female Tottenham Hotspur player.

I truly hope that it did not happen and that Renee Hector misheard or misinterpreted events. That's all we can say about that at the moment.