About

Friday evening at our usual bar table was going well until one of us chirped in “it’s the start of the FA Cup next Saturday so why don’t we try again to do the FA Cup across all 14 rounds to the Final??”

I say AGAIN as we tried this football marathon over the 2019/2020 season under our banner “Stotfold to Wembley” and got as far as the Quarter Final. Only for that 6th round tie having to be played behind closed doors due to Covid…

With an extended squad, the hot weather and a few cold Peroni’s it was all agreed… but which team do we start with?

There are some 732 clubs entering the 2022/23 FA Cup, so we stuck to the previous principle of supporting the nearest local club with a home tie and take it from there, following the winner of each round all the way to Wembley Way.

Shefford Town and Barton Rovers were two of the 416 clubs entering at Stage 1 – the Extra Preliminary Round – and were both pretty much equal distance from our pub, so we had to think hard about who we go with as both had home ties. Very hard decision and so we had to think very, very hard…

All of us thinking very hard on which team to follow.

In the end, logic prevailed that we start with Barton Rovers on the basis they were hosts to Arlesey Town who are only a few miles further down the road and so if it goes to a Replay (which it did!) we wouldn’t have too far to go on Tuesday…

We learned that lesson from 2019 after a Tuesday evening replay all the way over at Canvey Island!

And so the motion was carried and preparations were made for another epic journey to seek the football fan’s holy grail of attending all 14 rounds from the Extra Preliminary to The Final of the World’s oldest and greatest domestic club football cup competition… THE F.A. CUP