Two League One clubs with a history of giant-killing as non-League sides meet in the First Round Proper of this season’s FA Cup.
Yeovil Town and their famous sloping Huish pitch may still be some people’s favourite non-League giant-killers in The Cup.
Yeovil Town v Crawley Town
FA Cup First Round Proper
3pm, Saturday 8 November
Huish Park, Yeovil
Winners receive £18,000 from the FA Prize Fund
They moved to their new Huish Park ground in 1990 and have been a Football League club for the past eleven years, but their history as a non-League giant-slayer is legendary.
The Glovers - who have played in the Southern League, Alliance Premier League, Isthmian League and Football Conference – knocked 20 League clubs out of The Cup and reached the First Round Proper on no less than 49 occasions.
League clubs must have dreaded being drawn against them.
The ones who fell to the plucky Glovers from Somerset were Bournemouth (twice), Crystal Palace (twice), Exeter, Brighton, Bury, Sunderland, Southend (twice), Walsall (twice), Brentford, Cambridge, Torquay, Hereford, Fulham, Northampton, Colchester and Blackpool.
Yeovil's Gavin Williams competes for possession against Liverpool's Dietmar Hamann and El-Hadj Diouf in 2004
In The Cup there is arguably nothing more fascinating than a tie between a non-League team and one from English football’s top flight.
Yeovil’s 'finest hour' came in the 1948-49 season after wins against Lovells, Romford, Weymouth and Division Two Bury set up a Fourth Round tie at home to Sunderland.
Over 17,000 spectators squeezed into Huish to see a classic ‘David and Goliath’ encounter against a side that finished that season in eighth place in Division One.
A confident Yeovil began the game in great style and it was 1-1 after 90 minutes.
Crawley travelled to Old Trafford in 2011
Eric Bryant scored the non-Leaguers’ winner near the end of the first period of extra time amid scenes of great enthusiasm.
In a never-to-be-forgotten night crowds packed the streets of the town.
But two weeks later little Yeovil were crushed 8-0 by Manchester United at Maine Road in the Fifth Round.
Crawley Town are one of a select band of non-League clubs to have reached that Fifth Round of The Cup.
They have only been a League club for three years, achieving promotion after topping the Conference Premier in 2010-11.
In that same season their Cup journey had started with a 1-0 victory at Newport County in the Fourth Round Qualifying.
Crawley celebrate reaching the Fifth Round after beating Torquay in 2011
In the Competition Proper they beat Guiseley (5-0 away), Swindon (3-2 away after a 1-1 draw at home), Derby (2-1 at home) and Torquay (1-0 away) to earn a dream tie with eleven-time winners Manchester United.
United’s Wes Brown notched the only goal of the contest on 28 minutes and an Old Trafford crowd of 74,778 saw Crawley’s incredibly brave display.
The Crawley ‘Red Devils’ had enjoyed an exciting run through to the Third Round as a Southern League club back in the early 1990s.
They knocked out Division Three Northampton en route to a Sussex derby with Brighton, when a Goldstone full house saw the home side triumph 5-0.
Yeovil take on Crawley at Huish Park at 3pm on Saturday 8 November.
