Whitey Grandad

Indeed you are quite correct. For temporary (not season-long) loans written permission has to be given by the lending club by 12:00 noon on the Friday before the date fixed for playing the round in order for the player to be 'eligible'. As for disciplinary procedures and bans, I believe that these only apply to games for which the player is 'eligible'. Of course, if Trotman were to collect a fifth booking and therefore a ban, what is there to stop Southampton asking Preston for written permission knowing full well that he is banned from playing the next match for which he would be 'eligible'?

Matches tend to go to the team that wants it the most.

Interesting point that. He is eligible to play as he is officially on loan at Southampton. As far as I know, any other 'understandings' about not playing against the club that holds your registration or not getting cup-tied are unofficial and cannot be written into the loan agreement.

Murty for me, every time.

So they said, whoever 'they' were. I'm perfectly happy with our present situation and there are very few old boys from recent years that I would like to see back - apart from Walcott, that is, if he could stay fit.

Draws I would have preferred.... Home to anybody. Away to... Bath City, Gateshead, Barrow, Cambridge United (for old times' sake), York City, Hereford United, Exeter City, Port Vale/Stevenage, Carlisle/Morecambe, Barnet, Accrington Stanley, Staines, Rushden & Diamonds, Nortwich Victoria, Aldershot, Wrexham, or even Kettering Town. Can we draw it again? Best out of three?

That's one way of looking at it. But confidence builds upon success. One school of thought would have been to rest Connolly for last Friday but starting the game and scoring those two goals will have done him a lot more good than staying at home and 'having a rest'. And who did I want? 'Any lower-league team at home, or if it's away then some proper football ground that I haven't been to before in some interesting part of the country'. I was wrong all all counts.

Right result, wrong route to get there.

Now you've got me thinking.... At present 20 teams go through from round 2 to join 44 big-boys in round 3 where they will have a probability of 19 in 63 of meeting one of them, so about 70%. If those 44 were to appear in round 2 there would be a total of 128 teams so 84 would be 'little' ones each having a probability of 83 in 127 of meeting a big-boy, i.e. about 35%. But there would be more little-boys in the draw. My head hurts now so I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to calculate the most-likely number of little-boy/big-boy matches in each scenario. I'm off to Argos before they close. (I think you must be right, though. A 2nd round draw with 84:44 little:big teams must mean a greater number of big on little meetings)

But it does increase the chances that a 'little team' can make it through to a tie at one of the 'big boys'. Like most other people, I suspect, I never used to think much about the FA Cup rounds 1 & 2 and all the mattered was who we got in the third round. It does feel strange, though, not having to worry about getting a match at Old Trafford just because we desperately needed the money. Let some other desperate team get that - like Pompey.

Oh, and who do I want? Any lower-league team at home, or if it's away then some proper football ground that I haven't been to before in some interesting part of the country. That'll be Norwich away then.

I was wondering too, so from the FA site: Live Second Round proper draw 3.35pm, Sunday 8 November 2009 Live on ITV1

That is no longer an option. The home team can no longer switch the ground.

A sensible question and still no definitive answer.

Thanks for that. I knew that it had to be but I couldn't hear a word of the announcement. The only outstanding question then is why we were wearing black armbands and BR weren't. When I used to ref on Sunday mornings we used to have 2 minutes at half-time as it was closest to 11:00. Every player was keen that we observed it.

There was also the minute's silence. Did anybody hear what the stadium announcer was saying about it?

Is that the award for the flyweight division?

It was a well-executed routine. The only thing that matters is that BR were caught flat-footed and it gave us the breakthrough that we needed. How could anybody see anything negative in that???

I hope you're meeting him for personal and not professional reasons?

I agree totally. The only stupid question is one that isn't asked.

Were they the couple that left a few minutes before the end? They looked like they were going off early for something more important.

The other nominations must have been bad.

I was dry side centre, but far enough forward to be getting slightly wet. Worst view of any seat I've ever had, including Highbury. Quality chant though.

If you watch the match again you see that the ManU players had it in for Davies. He was raked on the back of his ankle and it could have finished his career (and cost us 7 million)

Bearing in mind that I was sitting in the next to bottom row behind their goal and with a scaffold pole, drainpipe and goalkeeper blocking my view, I couldn't believe that he missed it either. There was a shot from their right across goal that Kelvin palmed out to the left-hand side on the penalty area. It fell straight to one of their players on the edge of the box and the goal was unguarded. He hit it first time, high, wide and handsome a few yards to the right of the goal. If they had scored it then the last 10 minutes would have been interesting.