FA Historian David Barber has attended 6,730 football matches 70 FA Cup First Round ties, and his first ever was a 1960 tie between Crystal Palace and Hitchin.
He has never looked back – and as his favourite weekend of the season approaches, The FA's resident Super Fan looks back at some of his favourite First Round encounters...
Memories...
I still have the programme from that first match, kept in a drawer here at Wembley, and can remember most things about that grey November afternoon.
My seat in ‘Wing Stand B’ cost half-a- crown and there were 22,000 inside the ground to see Palace take a tenth-minute lead against the Athenian League side through Johnny Byrne, destined to star later for West Ham and England.
Back then Palace were in Division Four and won easily 6-2. They were promoted at the end of that season.
The artwork from the matchday programme between Crystal Palace and Hitchin back in 1960
QPR played Poole Town from the Southern League in 1966 and it was my first visit to Loftus Road.
The previous lunchtime I broke my arm playing football and I was sitting in the stand plastered!
Rangers hero Rodney Marsh scored a hat-trick in their 3-2 win, brave goalkeeper Mike Kelly was carried off on a stretcher after taking a kick to the head and there was an odd incident involving winger Mark Lazarus.
Lazarus, a real character, ripped his shorts in a tackle and removed them a yard or so from the touchline as the trainer approached with a new pair.
At that moment a team-mate passed him the ball and instinctively he set off on a run down the wing – with the ball but without any shorts!
I had to wait 12 years for my first ‘giant-killing’ in the First Round. Walton & Hersham of the Isthmian League beat Division Four Exeter City 2-1 at Stompond Lane.
Pictured here in 1967, The Barber saw Rodney Marsh in the First Round in 1966
I stood on some covered terracing near a corner flag and recall the tension as the Grecians forced corner after corner in the final minutes.
Whyteleafe’s Church Road ground was one I had been going to since the ‘60s.
When they played in the Surrey Senior League and the weather wasn’t too grand, they would be lucky to have double figures watching.
In 1999 they won through to the First Round of The Cup for the first time and I was one of 2,164 spectators who saw them hold Division Three Chester City to a 0-0 draw.
The ‘Leafe even had a penalty saved with about ten minutes to go. The Match of the Day cameras were there. Unbelievable.
The Barber was a face among the crowd at Eastbourne v Oxford in November 2005
Eastbourne Borough’s first appearance in the First Round in 2005 saw them drawn at home to Oxford United, then in Division Two, and there was a dramatic finale to excite a capacity 3,500 crowd at Priory Lane.
The Sports were losing 1-0 when one of their players was tripped inside the box in the last minute.
Their fans could hardly breathe as Ollie Rowland stepped up to smash the spot-kick into the bottom corner.
But there was an infringement and he had to take it again. Postal worker Ollie put it in the same place and everyone went mental. Me included.
Bromley v Dartford tomorrow will be my 71st match in the First Round.
