SPAOTP's Road to Wembley: FA Cup 3rd Round Proper

Today we arrived in Round Three of the 2007/08 FA Cup (sponsored by E.On) and in case you haven't been with us on our Road to Wembley so far, we're following Swansea City as they faced Havant and Waterlooville.

Round Two certainly proved to be an eventful one for us as our adopted team at the time were Horsham FC. They played Swansea City at home and earned a commendable 1-1 draw. Unfortunately the replay at Swansea's Liberty Stadium proved too difficult for them as The Swans thrashed the The Hornets 6-2, so once again we wave our old team goodbye and welcome aboard a new one and our first on the Road to Wembley from the Football League.

Swansea City are currently flying high in League 1 and are currently occupying top spot in the table thanks to an impressive recent run of form. Their last defeat came on November 16th at home to Huddersfield Town and since then they've notched up seven wins and two draws, so it's no surprise manager Roberto Martinez won the Coca-Cola League 1 Manager of the Month award.

He must have been feeling pretty confident when the draw for the FA Cup 3rd Round pitted them against Conference South side Havant and Waterlooville. That said, Swansea City have come a cropper in the past when playing supposedly weaker opposition in the Cup. Nuneaton Borough knocked them out in 1967 and 1994, Margate did it in 1973, Minehead did it in 1977 and Bognor Regis Town beat them in 1985, so would there be another upset today?

It was a distinct possibility. Swansea have had trouble replicating their league form in the FA Cup this season as the replayed match against Horsham proved. Even the previous round wasn't straight-forward for Martinez's band of men as they left it to the last half an hour to come back from 1-0 down to win 2-1 against Billericay Town.

So who could he rely on to score a goal or two today? Well his top scorer in all competitions so far in 2007/08 has been Trinidad and Tobago striker Jason Scotland (or is that Scotland striker Jason... oh never mind...) He's put the ball in the net thirteen times so far this season, plenty more than fellow team members Paul Anderson (8) and Andy Robinson (6) but goals have been going in from all over the place of late so there didn't seem to be much cause for concern.

What was a concern was The Swans knack for conceding goals. For every two they've scored in the league, they've let one in so today's game was always going to be tricky. Just how did they get on, then?

Well Swansea started off the brighter of the two teams as shots from Darren Pratley, Jason Scotland and Leon Britton all hit the crossbar, but a hard-fought match failed to produce any goals until the 74th minute when Andy Robinson scored from a 30-yard free kick.

You'd have put your house on Swansea to wrap the game up, especially when Havant's Brett Poate was sent off for a two-footed tackle on Andrea Orlandi five minutes later, but it caused tempers to be raised between both sides and Swansea's Alan Tate also saw red shortly after. The game had lost its flow but Havant and Waterlooville turned it to their advantage as Rocky Baptiste seized on a defensive mistake to equalise with three minutes left.

The game finished a 1-1 draw and the two teams will now meet again for the replay at Westleigh Park on Wednesday 16 January. Swansea will be pleased not to have been knocked out by lesser opposition, but they'll feel they should have won after dominating so much of the match. Can they finish off the job in eleven days time? Watch this space to find out...

SPAOTP's Road to Wembley: FA Cup 2nd Round Proper

We're back on the Road to Wembley today. "You're a bit early," we here you cry. "It's not Saturday yet."

Well no, but in the Second Round Proper of the FA Cup we're following non-league Horsham FC and tonight they're playing League 1 Swansea City, so we're bringing you all you need to know ahead of the game. Oh and in case you didn't know, this is the first time you'll be able to watch SPAOTP's adopted team live on TV as tonight's match is being shown on Sky Sports 1 here in the UK at 7.30pm GMT.

So to recap, the last round of the FA Cup (sponsored by E.ON) saw us following Maidenhead United as they travelled down to Horsham but yet again, we seem to have put a jinx on our team as they crashed 4-1 to the home side. It was therefore 'goodbye Maidenhead, hello Horsham' but shock horror - the Second Round draw saw one of our teams actually playing at home - and against one of the highest placed clubs in the round!

Yes, Horsham will play host to Swansea City this evening and it'll undoubtedly be a tough game, so let's get the low-down on The Hornets while we can, just in case anything unfortunate should happen...

Horsham FC has been in existence for a whopping 136 years. The 1920's and 1930's saw Horsham reach their first peak as they won the County League on several occasions but their first breakthrough into the First Round Proper of the FA Cup didn't come until the 1947-48 season.

In 1974, Horsham arrived in the Isthmian League where they currently reside (see our Football Pyramid for details) but by the end of the 1970's, The Hornets were battling to avoid bankruptcy. Relegation to the Isthmian League Second Division soon followed and the 1980's proved a difficult spell for them.

There then followed a gradual turn-around in their fortunes with the pinnacle of their achievements being promotion to the Isthmian League Premier Division in 2005-06. Last year they finished eighth in the league and they're currently seventh, so who knows - maybe promotion to the Conference South could be on the cards this season?

Their current form suggests Swansea might have a tough task on their hands this evening. Horsham have lost only two of their last eleven games in all competitions and a 1-0 win in the league last Saturday against Harrow Borough was the perfect way to prepare for a visit by The Swans in the Cup tonight.

Horsham's number 10, Carl Rook, is the man to keep an eye open for tonight. He's their top goalscorer so far this season in all competitions with 12 goals, but there's plenty more where that came from with Lewis Taylor, Simon Austin and Jacob Mingle all boasting six goals to their name too.

So can Manager John Maggs do the unthinkable and beat the might of Swansea City? They've been beaten by non-league opposition before as any fan of Nuneaton Borough or Bognor Regis Town will tell you. And given the fact that tickets for the tie sold out on Wednesday morning, I think it's fair to say the locals are more than optimistic it can happen.

Let's wish our team for the Second Round, Horsham FC, the best of luck for tonight and who knows - they might just face Manchester United in the next round...

SPAOTP's Road to Wembley: FA Cup 1st Round Proper

This is it, folks - this is the bit where the FA Cup starts getting really serious. Today saw the First Round Proper of the 2007/08 FA Cup (sponsored by E.On) where only those amateur teams with nerves of steel and toughness to boot can win against the might of the professionals who enter at this stage.

In two rounds time, the big boys from the Premier League and the Championship join in the fun, but for now those non-leaguers that thought it was tough so far now have the League 1 and League 2 sides to contend with.

Luckily for us, we were following Maidenhead United from the Conference South who today travelled to play a team below them in the 'league pyramid' - Horsham, from the Isthmian Premier League.

Maidenhead, you may remember, became our latest team on the Road to Wembley by beating the previous incumbents Hayes & Yeading United in the Fourth Qualifying Round. So what do we know about them?

Well Maidenhead are fresh back in the Conference South having been relegated two seasons ago. They gained promotion again in the summer but so far this season they've been struggling. Last Saturday's away defeat to Bishop's Stortford saw them drop into the bottom three so another sortie into the FA Cup will no doubt come as a welcome respite for them.

The Magpies (they play in black and white striped shirts, you see) were once managed by former West Ham midfielder Alan Devonshire but currently have Johnson Hippolyte in charge who, with considerable irony, was once joint manager of Yeading.

Of the players in his squad, Manny Williams was easily the man to keep an eye on today as he's scored six goals in the Blue Square South so far, while Lee Newman's scored three and Errol Telemaque and Dwane Lee have picked up two each.

And so it was that our brave men headed down to Horsham for today's First Round clash, but little did they know that the SPAOTP jinx was about to strike once again. In front of a crowd of 3,000 at the Atspeed Stadium, it was the home side that rose to the occasion first. Nigel Brake's excellent long-range shot put Horsham 1-0 up just before half time and Lee Carney's overhead kick doubled their lead after 62 minutes.

Shortly afterwards, Maidenhead's dead-ball specialist Dwane Lee pulled a goal back from the penalty spot but Horsham were able to finish the game off with two goals in the last eight minutes thanks to a second from Carney and one from substitute Lee Farrell. Maidenhead were out of the Cup 4-1 and their return to an arduous and thus far largely unfulfilling league campaign once again becomes their main priority.

We therefore send our sympathies to Maidenhead and welcome Horsham as our new Road To Wembley team. We also send our congratulations as today's convincing performance means they can now look forward to a place in the Second Round of the FA Cup for the first time ever.

Who will they play? We'll find out tomorrow when the draw for the next round of the FA Cup (sponsored by somE.ONe) takes place at FA Headquarters at 17:15 GMT.