Doncaster Rovers’ fifth round FA Cup tie against Crystal Palace – their first game at this stage of the competition in 63 years – represents their biggest cup match since 2005, when they hosted Arsenal in the League Cup quarter-finals.
Very few factors remain the same for Rovers since they took a team featuring Aleksandr Hleb, Gilberto Silva and Robin van Persie to penalties – Gilberto having to score a 120th-minute equaliser before the Gunners won the shoot-out.
They have long since left their ramshackle Belle Vue home for the modern Keepmoat Stadium. The coaching staff have left, the ownership has changed hands, and every member of the playing squad has either moved on or retired. Except one.
Only 38-year-old midfielder James Coppinger remains from the Doncaster Rovers squad that took Arsenal to penalties in the 2005 League Cup quarter-finals
James Coppinger played 102 minutes that night, and on Sunday, aged 38, will almost certainly start against Palace. He signed for Doncaster from Exeter for £30,000 in 2004, and has stayed ever since.
In that time he has earned two League One promotions, including a Wembley play-off final victory over Leeds, Yorkshire’s traditional big footballing beast, after scoring a hat-trick against Southend in the semi, which he describes as his finest career moment.
He has made 585 club appearances – no other Rovers player in history even comes close – and is still a crucial figure, with 12 assists in all competitions this season. In the last two campaigns, he has won the club’s Player of the Year award.
None of which, he admits, was ever in his career plans.
‘I never envisaged being there for 15 years,’ he tells Sportsmail. ‘But at the same time I knew I was joining an ambitious club, and I felt my career progressed as the club did.
Coppinger scored a hat-trick in Doncaster's League One play-off semi-final victory in 2008
‘I didn't feel there was any need to move on – it would have been solely for the money. I didn’t feel the need, I was happy, my family was happy. As Doncaster progressed, I progressed, we went hand in hand.’
All of which is a long way from the troubles of his early career which nearly saw him walk away from football entirely.
Aged 17, he was plucked from Darlington’s academy by Kenny Dalglish’s Newcastle for £500,000, but played just 11 minutes of Premier League football over four years before being sold to Exeter, where he was relegated from the Football League.
A young player suddenly struggling in non-league on the other side of the country to his family, Coppinger readily admits he was ready to give up football entirely.
He says: ‘I was on the verge of quitting, I was considering what else I could do, I was serious about it, I spoke
