Sweet FA Cup.

This is going to be a great weekend of football.  The MLS cup conference semi-finals second leg games will be played over 4 days, starting Thursday night with only one goal seperating the teams in every game, so it's all very much still up for grabs.  Then in England, it's FA cup time.  While the third round, when all the big teams enter, is generally the weekend that gets the most attention, the first round proper, when the League One and League Two teams join all the non-league teams that have got through qualifying, is one of my favourite footballing weekends of the year.  Those Football League teams that are generally ignored for most of the year are lined up as the giants waiting to be killed and a bunch of teams from towns you've never heard of get their moment in the spotlight.  I don't know if they still do it or not, but every year it was a BBC staple to do a piece following the players in their real jobs, one of which was always, always, a postman.

This years teams getting the patronising pats on the head are Tipton Town (from park football to the FA cup!)and Hythe Town (the lowest ranked team left in the cup)who have away games at Carlisle and Hereford respectively.

Other matches getting attention, in my house at least are Darlington vs Bristol Rovers and Gillingham vs Dover.  As a freshly minted non-league team, Darlington had to qualify, which they did by beating Mossley AFC 6-2.  Mossley had 3 players sent off, including their goalkeeper, leading to the man who works their tannoy using his platform to announce to everyone“I don't believe you referee, you're turning this into a farce!”  Fantastic stuff.  It's not a great draw as Rovers are probably big enough to be able to beat us easily, whilst not being big enough for Darlington to get the big crowd and cash they need.

Gillingham vs Dover could be very interesting, mainly due to the following, which happened this summer, brought up in the Guardian's The Knowledge section

"On 6 November Gillingham will be playing Dover in an FA Cup first round game," begins James Tong. "Not only is it a nice Kentish derby, but it has added spice given that this summer we nicked their manager (Andy Hessenthaler), their assistant manager (Darren Hare, now youth team manager), their replacement manager (Ian Hendon, who was there for 17 days, was on holiday for 14 of those days, then came up the A2 to Gillingham not having signed a contract at Dover) and their replacement player/assistant manager (Nicky Southall, now at his fourth spell at Priestfield). As we're two leagues apart and the Whites are making the FA Cup first round for only the third time ever, it's quite amazing that we've been drawn against them in the season after all the shenanigans. Has there been a spicier match drawn in such against-the-odds circumstances?"

The match getting the most coverage though is FC United of Manchester's game against Rochdale, this being the first time FCUM have made it this far in their 5 year existence since being created by Manchester United fans sick of what their club had become and pushed over the edge by the Glazer's takeover of the club.  This is a great article published after they qualified, detailing how they've come this far and what their future plans are.  I love a good 'stick it to The Man' story as much as anyone, especially when that Man is Man Utd. so even though I have a soft spot for Rochdale, I'll certainly be cheering for FCUM.