League Two’s Notts County continued to fly the flag for English football’s fourth tier by dumping Premier League side Wigan out of the competition on Tuesday with a 2-0 victory.
Wolves also tumbled out of the world’s oldest knockout competition with Mick McCarthy’s side going down to a 3-1 defeat by the Championship’s Crystal Palace, for whom Danny Butterfield scored a six-minute hat-trick.
Notts County were on the back foot for most of their match at Wigan.
But with 15 minutes left, Stephen Hunt headed home from a Ben Davies corner to give them the lead and, three minutes later, Wigan’s recently-signed Scottish defender Gary Caldwell deflected another Davies cross into his own net.
That sealed a 2-0 victory and County’s reward was a fifth round trip to another Premier League side, Fulham.
Palace’s hat-trick hero Butterfield was left in a state of shock after his second-half heroics against Wolves.
The defender turned striker had scored just one goal in six previous seasons at Palace and he admitted: “I still can’t believe it’s happened.
“I’m normally a one goal every four seasons man so three in one night is unbelievable.”
Karl Hendry pulled one back for Wolves in the final minute but Butterfield’s 62nd, 65th and 68th-minute strikes had made the game safe by then.
The win will mean a welcome cash boost for Palace, who went into administration last week and were forced to sell their highly-rated young striker, Victor Moses, to Wigan on the final day of the transfer window to appease creditors.
That prompted Butterfield to joke: “I think I was a day too late, I could have perhaps gone for four or five million yesterday!”
Palace entertain League Cup finalists Aston Villa in what should be a lucrative fifth round tie.
