The FA Cup first round.

 The FA Cup first round.

It's that magical weekend of the football calendar. Yes folks. For all its critics and cynics in recent years the FA Cup always comes up smelling of roses, chocolate and the  most vintage wine. The FA Cup belongs in some far off ancestral corner of our sporting imagination but always bursts into life at this time of the year. At its formation in 1872, it was a game played predominantly in universities and public schools, recreation fields next to billowing industrial chimneys, guzzling gasworks, the Oval, Crystal Palace, Stamford Bridge and then, ultimately, the old Wembley Stadium. 

This weekend though the FA Cup returns in its current incarnation, today's iteration, the way it is now and was and always should be in the future. It rolls into town like those rooting tooting Wild West cowboys on horseback, reckless and adventurous, unblemished by time, hardly touched by the ravages of modernity and high tech, brazen sponsorship, millions of pounds of investment by a thousand TV and radio stations, every conceivable football magazine and, for the locals, a full page spread in the regional newspapers. 

The FA Cup used to be about traditional values, the highest moral standards, giant killing of the most monumental order, the flights of fantasy winging their way through the land of fairy tales and the shock, horror stories where the FA Cup's most romantic liaisons always melted our hearts. The back page headline makers would always strut their stuff and then jump into the communal bath after a game, swigging back innumerable bottles of milk and champagne. 

This weekend, the FA Cup first rounds unfurls its finest tapestry with some of the most decorative stitches still intact. Maybe the FA Cup should be engraved on a special shield for posterity and regularly celebrated by all those little teams who play their matches before three dogs and a cat. For that is essentially the FA Cup, its essence, the foundation stone from where the first cement and brick was first laid. It is the recreation ground next to sylvan parkland, where the Sunday pub eleven trot out of tiny huts and smaller dressing rooms. The FA Cup was all about level playing grounds, the shining light of amateurism. 

The FA Cup belongs to the working classes, the dedicated part time players who strike the right balance between the work and fun conundrum with such effortless ease. They start their working day schedule at the crack of dawn, filling up supermarket shelves or clocking on at those manufacturing factories where steel and iron can still be heard. They post letters or trundle past chocolate box terraced houses with rattling milk floats. They spend interminable hours hunched over office desks in front of flickering screens. And then they will play football because that represents a welcome relief from the toil and intensity of hard graft.

So who would care to step up to the plate first. In the fair city of Bristol, Weston - Super- Mare will meet Aldershot, a game that conjures up all of the symbolism and imagery of a typical Cup tie. There will be little fuss and commotion at the end of this one. Then there's Salford City for whom several Old Trafford alumni will have vested interests in this year's FA Cup. Salford City will meet Lincoln City, perhaps completely unnoticed by TV or radio but embraced by social media.  

There's Bedfordshire's finest Luton Town who will play green, environmentally friendly Forest Green Rovers, both of whom may have to content themselves to the bread and butter of the Football League pyramid. The lovely county of Essex will be preparing itself for the visit of Milton Keynes Dons who for their part, will probably have to negotiate several roundabouts. Colchester, home of those famous military barracks, will be hoping to down the Dons and what could be better than that. 

Meanwhile, Tranmere Rovers, not a million miles away from the allegedly superior Merseyside neighbours of both Liverpool and Everton, will meet Stockport County which is more or less a local case of bragging rights in that part of the Wirral. Wigan, who memorably won the FA Cup in 2013 against the all conquering and mighty Manchester City, will be up against Hemel Hempstead Town and that maybe the end for the gallant folk of Hemel Hempstead. 

And then the Welsh wizards of Newport County will face those fine and able representatives from the Garden of England in Kent where Gillingham will be hoping to adorn their day with the most fragrant bouquet of roses. Cheltenham, in deepest gymkhana and horse loving Gloucestershire, take on the ruthless but stylish Yorkshiremen of Bradford City while those other illustrious Yorkshire folk Barnsley engage in another local derby against York City. 

So let's wrap up this gentle synopsis of FA Cup goodies. There's the War of the Roses showdown between Bolton Wanderers against Huddersfield which has the ring and resonance of a 1920s Cup tie. Farnham, of  Surrey stockbroker belt territory, will meet eyeball to eyeball either Sutton United or Telford United. Back on the Essex Riviera, there sounds like a cracking, exhilarating local derby between Chelmsford City and Braintree Town. 

Wherever you may be over the weekend it would be advisable to carry around you a box of handkerchiefs, some nutritious beef and onion pies and a flask of tea or coffee because the FA Cup is bound to get emotional. Tomorrow marks the first day of November and some of us get very sentimental when those happy strugglers of the non League try to upstage their so called betters of the Football League pyramid. The FA Cup, by its very presence, is still good for the soul, unforgettable and a constant source of reassurance to those who may think football lost its soul ages ago. It's time to strap yourself in tightly for the great roller coaster that is the FA Cup. Of course it matters.