Pity Northampton Town, but what about Gala Fairydean?

I'm sure Manchester United fans suffered when they lost 1-6 at home to Manchester City. I'm sure Chelsea fans suffered when they lost 3-5 at home to Arsenal, as well as yesterday when they lost 1-2 at home to Liverpool.

But Manchester United and Chelsea fans have far more good days than they do bad. Manchester United, for instance, haven't conceded a goal in five games since that disastrous defeat.

Get over it, big boys.

Consider poor Northampton Town fans. There were 5,039 in attendance at Sixfields on Saturday (not all home fans, of course) for the visit of Shrewsbury Town - not long back in the Football League, but in a play-off position in League One. "The Cobblers" are at the wrong end of the table, but the fans couldn't have expected the events of Saturday afternoon.

Northampton Town were 3-0 down at half-time; already a bad day. Four minutes into the second half, however, Ben Tozer pulled a goal back to give the home fans some hope. And it remained at 1-3 until the 82nd minute when Marvin Morgan made it 1-4. No doubt this was a cue for many home fans to exit, but they would have missed Ade Akinfenwa pulling another back to make it 2-4 three minutes later. A bad result, but not a disaster.

However, the next few minutes would make it a disaster. Shrewsbury Town helped themselves to three more goals in the dying minutes to make a final scoreline of Northampton Town 2, Shrewsbury Town 7. It's the kind of result you avoid buying a paper for.

A terrible day for Northampton Town's suffering fans as the team remained 20th in the table. Not bottom then! No, poor Pymouth Argyle are seven points behind Northampton.

There's always somebody worse off than your team.

What about the poor Gala Fairydean fan(s) whose team lost 11-0 to Airdrie United in the Scottish Cup on Saturday?

Liverpool join Everton in League Cup graveyard

The Carling Cup proved to be the graveyard of some of the biggest names in the Premier League over the last couple of days.

Topping the shock list has to be Liverpool who could only draw 2-2 at home with League Two side Northampton Town, before The Cobblers - placed 17th in their division - knocked out their hosts 4-2 on penalties. The sight of a drenched Liverpool boss Roy Hodgson was evocative of the dreadful result.

This followed the demise of Liverpool's local rivals Everton, similarly on penalties (4-3), at the hands of League One's Brentford - currently placed 19th.

Even Chelsea, the mighty champions of the country - thrashing everyone in their path to date - fell at their first League Cup hurdle, losing 4-3 at home to Newcastle United. From 3-1 down and with only ten men, the Blues battled back to level, only for Shola Ameobi to head the winner as time ran out.

Lesser shocks were Bolton Wanderers losing at Burnley and Manchester City losing at West Brom, but the League Cup once again showed its propensity for promoting lower clubs through its rounds. Weakened teams may be an excuse, but on one could tell me that Liverpool and Everton wanted to lose to their humble opponents.