#FACup, Second Qualifying Round - setting the scene as the Cup dream returns to Mid Suffolk

After my day out last season, sponsoring a home game of our local Ryman League, Division One North, football team - Needham Market FC - I had intended to take in a few more games this year. Sadly, our busy schedule combined with the fact that, when we were at home, Needham Market weren't, has meant that it hadn't been possible until yesterday. However, having got back from Gibraltar on Friday evening, I was able to go to yesterday's big FA Cup game at Bloomfields.

Last year, the Marketmen made it to the Fourth Qualifying Round for the first time ever, just one game short of a dream tie against a Football League side, but drew the worst possible opponent, Cambridge United, then top of the Conference and flying high - technically the highest ranked team in the competition at that stage. And, whilst it was at home, the three division gulf between the two sides made it feel like Mission Impossible. However, in front of a crowd of nearly 1,800 at Bloomfields, they came within ten minutes of holding on for a replay, in one of the town's biggest ever days.

This year, Soham Town Rangers were dispatched in the Preliminary Round, before Cambridge City of the Southern League's Premier Division (a division above Needham Market's) were vanquished on their own pitch in the First Qualifying Round. The reward for beating a higher-ranked side was what looked like a rather kinder draw in the next round.

London Tigers are a team that brings back some very distant memories. The very first game of competitive football that I ever saw was between Kingsbury Town and Farnham Town in 1972, and, having been brought up in Kingsbury, I always looked out for their results out of a vague sense of nostalgia. A few years ago, they merged with London Tigers to form Kingsbury London Tigers, which didn't really feel the same. It got worse when the Tigers decided to move to Greenford in West London, leaving the Silver Jubilee Park ground, and Kingsbury, without a football team to call its own.

It would be fair to say that, even allowing for the fact that I support the home side, I wasn't exactly minded to have much sympathy for the visitors. I had even less when it became known that their Honorary Patron is one Boris "Whiff Whaff" Johnson...