Cup commentary of the week

TO HONOUR the minnows in the first round proper of the FA Cup this weekend, we recommend "Twenty things you always see or hear at non-League football" from midfielddynamo.com. According to them, these include: "A half-time raffle where the prizes are mostly things like four cans of Mackeson, a box of out-of-date Terry's All Gold or a half-empty can of Lynx; and an annoyingly intermittent Tannoy system given to the club in 1974 by the local bus corporation." It is said that one Cup tie had an attendance so small the man on the PA nipped down just before kick-off, collected the names of the spectators and announced the "crowd" to the team rather than the other way round. Our research (10 minutes on Google) has failed to confirm this, but then facts have never been our strong subject.