The magic of the cup starts early for the Exiles

By Chester City Exiles on Sep 30, 09 12:23 PM in

I do enjoy a dose of Tuesday night football - what passion, commitment and desire to win I saw a couple of nights ago.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I wasn't at the Deva - but watching Leatherhead v Lewes in a replay of the FA Cup's 2nd qualifying round.

There's nothing to beat the magic of the Cup, at any level. When Lewes finally scored the match winner in the first period of extra time, you could see what it meant to them.

I don't think it was the excitement of playing Wealdstone in the next round - but just knowing what could lie ahead on the long road to Wem-ber-lee.

Of course, my attention was half on my mobile phone for news from Chester v Forest Green Rovers. I'm getting resigned to knowing that any bleep on my phone is usually bad news, and my instincts didn't let me down again.

But once I heard that first bleep and knew we were 1-0 down, I was glad I'd not made the effort to get to Chester and was getting my midweek football fix elsewhere.

Once it got to 2-0 to Forest Green I started thinking about the game I was watching and comparing it with what I might be seeing next season. Lewes, of course, were relegated from the Blue Square Premier last year, so Chester could well be playing their northern equivalents in 2010-11.

As I looked round, I realised it will feel very strange to watch Chester at this level.

There's no official attendance been given so far, but it must have been around 300 (good by Ryman South Leatherhead standards), and the crowd included people with dogs, children playing football and teenagers more interested in whatever they were listening to on their i-pods than the action in front of them.

It was only £8 to get in, and some even got in for free at half-time!

It was actually cracking entertainment, with a disallowed goal, a player suffering an awful cut head, a saved penalty and countless shots on target in 90 minutes of football.

By the time the referee blew for 90 minutes at Fetcham Grove, it was already 2-1 to Forest Green and game over in Chester. As the Deva devotees reflected on another poor result, I still had 30 minutes of extra-time cup football to savour.

In the end the Lewes victory was a fair result, with the two-league gap between Leatherhead and their opponents eventually beginning to tell.

I do wonder how City would have fared in an FA Cup scrap at the 2nd qualifying round stage, and I'm seriously worried I will find out next season.

I'll be off to Hayes on Saturday, where a victory will be crucial if Chester are to have any chance of avoiding that even longer road to Wembley next year.