It was a hot sunny start to our FA Cup adventure as we pulled into the car park at Sharpenhoe Road, home of our adopted Barton Rovers FC for this Extra Preliminary Round against local rivals Arlesey Town.

With half an hour to spare to kick off we, of course, headed straight for the clubhouse bar in what is a good facility shared with the adjoining Bowls club, and on such a scorching day made use of the outdoor bench tables.

There was even a kiddie playground that most parks would be proud of which our two young supporters from Ukraine made the most of.

The sparse crowd settled down to an early season cup encounter, but the first half of football was pretty dull with neither side able to control the ball sufficiently to mount meaningful attacks.

That could have been down to the pitch which had been exposed to the long hot summer and was nearly as hard as Harry Maguire’s forehead, or maybe it was the players being rusty after the summer break, but nothing really happened.

But that all changed on the 40th minute when there was finally some action, as Phil stood up to take the order for the half-time drinks!

We were intending to report on the fan food on offer, but although there was a Chicken George fast food facility under construction, there was absolutely no food on offer which is a first for us at a footy match!

The second half began livelier with Barton taking the initiative and in the 65th minute Tony Burnett latched on to a cross and drove the ball under the keeper into the Arlesey net.

This inevitably sparked both teams into life with chances on either end despite the relentless heat.

Arlesey created further chances towards the end with a shot just over the bar from Mortimer, and then in the 86th minute came the moment of the game with Mortimer scoring an equaliser from a scorcher of a shot from around 30 yards which would have been worthy of Lineker’s Goal of the Month.

Barton probably deserved a win on balance, but that humdinger of a Mortimer goal earned Arlesey another chance on Tuesday night.

So our very hard thinking of which team to follow first paid off as the Replay at Arlesey is only a few miles further up the road.