After a week of illness, suffering from flu, I recovered sufficiently to make my way to see Bath City’s FA Cup game on Saturday afternoon.

As has been mentioned with much excitement on previous blogs, just 90 minutes separated Bath City from a potential game against Leeds United or Norwich City. 90 minutes and AFC Totton…

Totton sit two divisions below City, but unbeaten since the opening day. Still, it’s a formality, isn’t it?

The opening 20 minutes suggested otherwise, as Totton played with the confidence and skill their league form suggests. However, it wasn’t long before Bath City scored and opened the floodgates. 1-0 fast became 2-0, which then turned to 3-0. As the game progressed, it could have been 6.

However, with the end in sight, it nearly all went very wrong. Totton scored twice, making it a very nervy final few minutes, however City hung on to make it into the first round. Nothing is every simple though.

Then there was the excitement of Sunday lunchtime – the FA Cup draw live on national television. Like thousands of non-league fans up and down the country, I was sat in front of my TV, gripped and willing Chris Powell and James Anderson to pick a massive giant for our local, little club.

Bath City learnt their fate very early on into the draw. Sadly, they avoided the big boys, but luckily managed to also dodge any fellow non-league sides, which would have resulted in a disappointing anti-climax. It was a trip to ‘League Two strugglers’, Grimsby Town, which was eventually pulled out the hat.

Grimsby is a long way to go and makes last month’s mammoth trip to Dover seem fairly local! All I really know about them is that they play in black and white, they’re northern, are not doing very well at the moment and all the locals are fishermen.

It’ll be a long old poke as they say…