Sweet FA Trophy, round 3

Well, the FA Cup 4th round didn't work out too well, all the League Two clubs are gone, there's a few Premiership vs league one ties, with Leyton Orient vs Arsenal as the most interesting, but all the attention is going to go to the thoroughly odious match-up of Crawley at Man Utd.  So it's once again time to turn to the FA Trophy for a breath of fresh air.

It's down to the last 16, you can see the ties as well as get a wealth of information about the teams and results in previous rounds here.  There's only 5 Conference clubs left, and only 2 of those are in the top half of the table, one of those teams is Luton Town who played against Gloucester City of the Conference North tonight.  Going by internet reports, Gloucester had the better of the game, but lost 1-0 to an 84th minute goal after their offside trap broke down.  So Luton are through to the quarter finals and are definitely the favourites at this stage.  3 of the 4 other Conference clubs are at home, and the best possibility for an upset is probably the one team that's away, Darlington with a very tricky tie against AFC Telford.

The lowest ranked team still in the competition is Chasetown, currently 10th in the Non-League Premier Southern Division, but who are on form right now, they had a 4 game winning streak, including knocking off Conference Team Grimsby Town in the last round, before losing to Rushall Olympic in the Birmingham Senior Cup this past Tuesday.    They face Eastleigh, who are a level above them in the pyramid.

Founded in 1954 and based in Burntwood, Staffordshire, Chasetown are known as the Scholars and play at a  2,000 capacity stadium, the refreshingly non-corporately named Scholars Ground.  They've worked their way slowly up to their current position which is the highest division they've ever been in, and getting to the last 16 is also the furthest they've ever been in the FA Trophy.  They did make the third round of the FA cup in 2008, making them the lowest ranked team to ever make it that far, though I'm not sure if that record still stands or not.  Their average attendance over the last few years seems to be round about 400, but they've got a livelyish forum going at the clubs website, I hope to visit it and see a lot of celebrating on Saturday. 
Prediction time, I'll go with a quarter final line-up of Luton, Darlington, Blyth Spartans, Guiseley with an upset at Eastbourne Borough, Chasetown, Dartford with the shock win over Gateshead, Mansfield and Woking.