The world awaits the FA Cup third round.

The world awaits the FA Cup third round.

This weekend the footballing communities will gather in their hundreds and thousands - nay less millions- to dig out their trusty scarves, dust down their FA Cup memorabilia from yesteryear and pretend that Wembley Stadium will undoubtedly be their final destination in May. The local shops and markets will be alive with fondly held fantasies and just a few delusions. They'll pin their rosettes firmly to their coats, indulge themselves helplessly in just a moment or two of optimism and then wake up on Sunday morning with just a hint of a sore head.

The FA Cup third round is that gold plated moment in the footballing calendar where the upper class bourgeoisie come face to face with the working class proletariat on the most level of playing fields. Never are the class distinctions and snobberies more clearly highlighted than on this first January weekend of the football season. But then this has become more or less the accepted norm for a number of years.

Tonight though marks the end of the first cycle of Premier League matches with the monumental head to head meeting of the two table topping giants. Current Premier League champions Manchester City have been rocked back on their feet with a series of potentially soul destroying defeats that may have dealt a severe blow to their retention of the Premier League. In fact it must have felt as though somebody had punched them in the stomach and then unforgivingly left them flat out on the ground. Liverpool, their opponents, may be feeling like that bloodthirsty heavyweight who can't wait to tuck into the carcass.

But away from all the thrills and spills and the fun of the fair at the top of the Premier League you're left with the distinct impression that both City and Liverpool would give anything for a decent Cup run if only to leave them with a welcome distraction from the blood and thunder of the Premier League's bubbling cauldron where the temperature must be at boiling point.

And yet here we are on the verge of another FA Cup weekend of heartbreaking misses, pulsating cliff hangers between the little minnows and the giant sharks while not forgetting a healthy dose of action packed excitement. From the rural farming hinterlands of Norfolk and Suffolk, to the lush green pastures of Middle England, football will hold its breath once again. This is that time of the year when David and Goliath slug it out with another slice of fiercely competitive commitment from both sides.

Now the FA Cup presents us with that familiar gallery of warehousemen from Gateshead, milkmen and postmen from Blyth Spartans and a varied mixture of the small and tall, the great and those who are just glad to be involved in the most famous competition in the footballing calendar. It is not asking a lot for the occasional Cup shock or upset because this is after all the essence and raison d'etre of the FA Cup.

It's hard to believe that the FA Cup did have its starting point and here in the depths of a dark winter of January most of us may have conveniently overlooked the first qualifying rounds of the FA Cup on balmy, swelteringly hot afternoons back in early August. We may have forgotten those snooker top green pitches when the last of the heatwave tanned parklands began to look remarkably like rustic hayricks, tufts of straw slowly turning a pristine green.

Then again, the FA Cup was all about local pride, heroic gallantry, embracing the magic of the FA Cup fully even if they knew that in their heart of hearts that Wembley would only remain a North London suburb and their only realistic objective is a place in the fifth round of the Lancashire League Cup. But still there will come a moment this weekend when the men from the Vanarama and Evo Stick League will enjoy their Parisian dalliance with the FA Cup where the love struck non Leaguers will blow the briefest of kisses from the distant Champs Elysees.

Across the country football chairmen and women from every level of the game will be packing out their clubhouses with feverish football fans with raucous voices and many a clinking glass of beer. For these are the people who remain the throbbing heartbeat of the game, the ones who stand bravely on storm tossed terraces with corrugated iron roofs, who shiver stoically as the rains sweep across them and then bob up and down in the hope that something miraculous might happen.

Sadly though, the FA Cup may be lacking in its customary sentimentality because in recent years those famous non League stalwarts may have been conspicuous by their absence. Only Wigan Athletic, who beat the now the world beating Manchester City  both surprisingly and shockingly in 2013 have been the Cup giant killers of note. Before then of course the FA Cups gave us the lovable Ipswich and Sunderland who wondrously toppled Arsenal and Leeds respectively in 1978 and 1973.

Even more unfortunately there are no more Bob Stokoes with their beige coats and hats, galloping onto the Wembley pitch like the youngest of ponies. There are, even more tragically, few who will even fall into the same category of  Sir Bobby Robson who stopped the world when his vastly entertaining Ipswich Town beat the seemingly glamorous Arsenal.

 When the final whistle went that day, Robson smiled widely, spun delightfully on the tips of his toes, rolled his shoulders from side to side and then danced immaculately. This was the FA Cup in a nutshell, a microcosm of what the FA Cup meant to Robson. This was the day that became Robson's wish fulfilment, the days when those school playground contests had to culminate in a boyhood FA Cup win, with Robson charging around the old Wembley Stadium with the Cup in his hand.

The image of a suited and booted Bobby Robson at an Ipswich town hall balcony beaming from ear to ear with the most infectious smile can never be erased. He emerged onto the balcony hardly able to comprehend the magnitude of his achievement. He thrust the FA Cup into the air with that thoroughly deserved air of triumphalism and then jigged for a while without caring for not a moment that millions were watching him.

And so we salute the men who week after week play their football for perhaps a pittance and then realise where they are and who they were playing. They play their game against a regular backdrop of tiny refreshment kiosks, eternally picturesque fields with waving trees and a full complement of cows and sheep dotting the richly incomparable landscape. This is the FA Cup with its lovely characters, its hardened professionals, its wonderful non League amateurs, its earthy authenticity, its giggling, chuckling understatement and its humorous belly laughing in the face of adversity.

We can only hope that by Monday morning somebody from the most unfashionable corner of England will be celebrating as if there were indeed no tomorrow. They will return to their day jobs of fitters and mechanics, welders and steeplejacks, engineers and dedicated factory workers. They will roll up their sleeves not because they have to but because at the end of the day football will become their one and only single preoccupation. The FA Cup will always be on their mind.

 For them the FA Cup will represent the highest point of their careers, the day they made the headlines, the ones who were just determined to defy the odds when none thought the improbable would ever happen. They've struggled and toiled to come this far and they weren't ready to give up now. These are men of spirit, verve and joie de vivre, have a go determination. We will remember you all and rightly salute you. May the FA Cup always have its honourable heroes.