GOAL! Norwich 3-0 MK Dons (Chrisene 43). Benjamin Chrisene twists, turns and aims for the top right. In it goes!

GOAL! West Ham 1-1 Portsmouth (Castellanos 43). The Hammers are level at the London Stadium. Taty Castellanos whipping into the top right after good work down the left from Mohamadou Kanté.

GOAL! Swansea 0-1 Birmingham (Priske 44). August Priske flicks home a low right-wing cross. A lovely touch.

GOAL! Burnley 0-1 Notts County (Roberts 42). Callum Roberts pearls one into the bottom right from distance.

GOAL! Preston North End 0-1 Huddersfield Town (Balker 38). Radinio Balker takes advantage against the ten men, heading a cross from the right into the bottom left. This is a replay of the 1938 FA Cup final, incidentally. Here’s how we described the winner of that match in the Joy of Six.

1. George Mutch (PRESTON 1-0 Huddersfield Town, 1938)

The 1938 FA Cup final between Preston North End and Huddersfield Town was the first to be televised live by the BBC. In the commentary box, describing the first half of this historic and prestigious event, was George Allison, manager of Arsenal, who were busy elsewhere taking on Liverpool as they battled with Wolverhampton Wanderers in the race for the title. (Imagine Sir Alex Ferguson eschewing Manchester United’s game at Blackburn in order to take the mic for ESPN. The past really is a different country.) Arsenal would win the league the following week, but Allison’s luck wasn’t in this particular day: the first half of the final, his showpiece broadcast, was a defensive non-event.

The second half was barely any better, save for a couple of speculative shots from Huddersfield’s Pat Beasley and Preston’s Bill Shankly. The game went into extra time. Describing the action, such as it was, since half-time was Lieutenant-Commander Thomas Woodrooffe, a former naval officer who had become one of BBC radio’s top broadcasters. Woodrooffe was appalled at the dreary nature of events, and with the match entering the 120th minute, he announced to the viewing nation (which, in 1938, totalled about 17 toffs in the Alexandra Palace area of London) that “if there is a goal now, I’ll eat my hat”.

Sure enough, and right on cue, Preston’s inside-right, George Mutch, picked up the ball and went on one last desperate sortie into the Huddersfield area. Alf Young, the Huddersfield captain, went over to cover. He stuck out a boot, with calamitous results. “Flat to earth went Mutch as though sudden death had overtaken him,” reported the Manchester Guardian. “The Huddersfield team stood thunderstruck in all the sad variety of woe, all save the wretched Young, who threw up appealing arms before the referee. Preston put breath back into Mutch and, after some anxious conclave, nominated and unanimously elected him to exact the tribute for the affront that had been done to him.”

Mutch nearly missed the penalty – it would be another exact half-century before that grim fate befell a player in the cup final – but the ball flew between Bob Hesford’s arms, caught the underside of the bar, and rolled along the netting before dropping into the goal. There was just time for Huddersfield to kick off before the final whistle blew. So, not exactly a contender to rival Ricky Villa, Roberto di Matteo or Ray Parlour, but one of the most dramatic finishes to a cup final, and one with a surreal denouement. Woodrooffe – who was already infamous for his majestic drunken Fleet’s Lit Up meanderings at a naval show a year earlier – bravely kept the promise made in the moments before Mutch sprawled over Young’s leg, and tucked into a bowler hat live on BBC television. It was made of cake and marzipan.

GOAL! Cardiff City 1-1 Swindon Town (Salech 29 pen). Belated news of Yousef Salech’s equaliser from the spot. I was searching for that Big Train sketch. To be fair, blame Gianni.

GOAL! West Ham 0-1 Portsmouth (Segecic 33). Adrian Segecic meets a half-cleared corner by chesting down on the edge of the box and threading a low bobbler into the bottom left. Segecic and Pompey benefitting from a wee deflection there.

GOAL! Bromley 1-1 Reading (Cheek 33). Michael Cheek bumbles his way down the middle, through a couple of challenges, and rolls home.

There are hydration breaks being taken in these matches. If AI could somehow replace the name of Tom Henderson with that of everyone’s favourite Fifa executive, all will be forgiven.

GOAL! Derby County 0-2 Lincoln City (Jefferies 23). Dom Jefferies fizzes a low drive across the keeper and into the bottom-left corner.

GOAL! Bristol Rovers 0-1 Peterborough United (Leonard 19 pen). Harry Leonard breaks the deadlock from 12 yards. Still not sure about that new Posh crest, but full marks for effort.

RED CARD: Preston North End 0-0 Huddersfield Town. Lewis Gibson is sent off for hauling down Ashley Fletcher, who was clean through.

GOAL! Bromley 0-1 Reading (Stokes 14). Josh Stokes whistles home from the inside-right channel. But should that shot have been parried? Another questionable goalkeeping moment.

GOAL! Leicester City 1-0 Northampton Town (Okoli 15). Caleb Okoli makes up for his earlier error by heading home from a corner hit long from the right. The keeper not covering himself in glory.

GOAL! QPR 0-1 Millwall (Cundle 53). Luke Cundle takes advantage of a mistake by QPR keeper and debutant Pierce Charles. A dropped cross, under no pressure, and the easiest of tap-ins.

GOAL! Cardiff 0-1 Swindon Town (Osho og 9). Gabriel Osho deflects into his own net.

Leicester City 0-0 Northampton Town. Russell Martin’s reign at Leicester nearly got off to a characteristically slapstick start. With just a few seconds on the clock, Caleb Okoli, attempting to Pep-pass his way out from the back, carelessly rolled the ball into the path of Harvey Saunders, who through on goal simply had to score, but slapped his shot straight at keeper Jakub Stolarczyk. That would have been quite the introduction to the Martin era.

GOAL! Norwich City 2-0 MK Dons (Slimane 7). Anis Slimane doubles Norwich’s lead. Mo Toure turns provider this time, unselfishly crossing low from the right to tee up Slimane, who takes a touch before steering home. Philippe Clement is doing some job for the Canaries.

GOAL! Grimsby Town 0-1 Blackpool (Ennis 3). Niall Ennis opens the scoring for Blackpool, who are not managed by Ruben Amorim.

GOAL! Derby County 0-1 Lincoln City (Clarke og 3). Matt Clarke channels his inner Sandy Brown, meeting a Lincoln corner with a spectacular diving header into his own net. No idea what he was trying to achieve there.

GOAL! Norwich City 1-0 MK Dons (Toure 1). Mohamed Toure opens the scoring early doors at Carrow Road. He strides down the inside-right channel and absolutely lashes home from the edge of the box. Just 40 seconds that took!

Cambridge United 2-1 Barnet. Idris Kanu puts the ball in the Cambridge net, amid a scramble, but there had been a foul in the build-up. There was also a clearance off the line in that build-up, Kabongo Tshimanga’s header stopped by Kelland Watts.

Cambridge United 2-1 Barnet. There will be seven minutes of added time. Barnet are pushing forward in search of the late equaliser that would take this tie to spot kicks, but without carrying much in the way of threat. Cambridge seem happy enough to sit back and soak up what little pressure there is.

HALF TIME: QPR 0-0 Millwall. Halfway to penalties, then.

… but we will be guaranteed action and/or drama at some point, one way or another. If the scores in these League Cup games remain level after the end of 90 minutes, it’s straight to a penalty shoot-out, with no need for extra time.

QPR 0-0 Millwall. There’s not a lot going on at Loftus Road in today’s only 2pm kick-off. Rangers have had most of the ball, Millwall have just had their first (off-target) shot at goal, and that’s it.

Pre-main-flurry-of-matches postbag. “How is there football already?” splutters Kári Tulinius. “Doesn’t it ever stop? Someone should campaign to stop football.” An admirable idea, though if we’re heading down that road, wouldn’t there first need to be a campaign to re-start the Fiver? And nobody’s going to agitate for that, are they.

GOAL! Cambridge United 2-1 Barnet (Heath 57). These off-piste London buses are becoming a goddamn nuisance. Isaac Heath completes the turnaround for Cambridge at the Abbey, where there’s now been three goals in eight minutes.

Meanwhile, in other time-wasting news, allow us to hang this on-topic retro Joy of Six triptych. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.

GOAL! Cambridge United 1-1 Barnet (Knight 52). Almost immediately, Ben Knight levels things up at the Abbey. What are these London buses doing in Cambridge?

GOAL! Cambridge United 0-1 Barnet (Tshimanga 49). We have our first goal of the afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Kabongo Tshimanga has opened the scoring at the Abbey Stadium.

In lieu of action to report, all of which will surely be coming down the line, here’s a musical interlude. All together now, you showbiz kids: ♬ ♪ ♫ You know they don’t give … ♬ ♪ ♫

… but there were goals in the three matches played last night. Wolverhampton Wanderers beat Port Vale 3-0, Stevenage won 2-1 at Wycombe, and ITV cleared their schedules for this:

There’s already one match underway, and we have to be honest with you, we’re not off to a flyer. It’s goalless between Cambridge United and Barnet at the break.