EVERYONE expected it and there it was, as familiar as Mark Lawrenson's whingeing tones. It took the BBC just a few moments of its coverage of Stanley's glorious first round FA Cup win over Huddersfield to remind us why the town is so famous.

THAT advert … the legendary "Accrington Stanley! Who are they?" acted out between two young, hopeful Scouse kids, whose only reason for drinking milk was to ensure they'd be good enough to play for a better team than Stanley.

What seemed insulting for Accrington was profitable for the Milk Marketing Board, which pushed on successfully with its drive to get kids to drink their milk. The advert put us on the map. For the wrong reason, maybe, but on the map nonetheless. The question "Who are they?" was only ever valid because of Stanley's fall from glory, departing from league football in 1962 after being one of the founder members.

Disappointed with the media's reliance on the milk advert, Greg Pope, Hyndburn MP, said: "What it shows is how lazy the metropolitan media are. They have no idea of what the town is like and what the people of Accrington are like. Accrington Stanley are a really famous football club but people who don't know us have this image of cobbled streets and cotton mills. They haven't really got an idea and we are up against this all the time. I am trying to represent an image of this part of the world that's modern. I thought Accrington Stanley were a great advert for Lancashire and it was entirely due to their own efforts."

With Stanley undoubtedly going in the right direction, Sunday's cup tie gave the national media a chance to find out about modern Accring-ton. Or would they take the easy option too, trotting out flat cap and whippet cliches to the 2.5 million viewers who watched the game?

Mr Pope's criticism that the national media are lazy was borne out by some of the dailies' coverage of the match. The Sun, not particularly patronising about the town, reserved its snide comments for match winner Andy Gouck. Under the headline Fat'll Do Nicely, its reporter wrote: "Pie-munching supersub Andy Gouck fired Accrington into FA Cup dreamland - and got his favourite meat and potato snack as a reward." Describing Gouck as "roly-poly", the reporter filed his story from the "Crown Ground". Nice to know he knew where he was.

Most nationals agreed Stanley had indeed helped recapture the magic of the cup, and combined their reporting of the game with important dates and events in Stanley's history. Saturday's Independent newspaper had an interesting human-interest story about Jack Barrett, a Hyndburn man who was instrumental in resurrecting the club in 1968.

As well as the BBC footage, Sky Sports and Channel 5 produced extensive features on Stanley, with the team featuring in all the national papers.
Sky and Channel 5 both interviewed Observer sports editor Dany Robson who has closely followed Stanley's FA Cup fortunes. But Channel 5's Jonathon Pearce's Football Night just had to open with that cliched shot of the town's terraced houses taken from the top of the Coppice.