Will play... number 78

And so normal service has been resumed. After last season’s enforced sabbatical from the 1st Round Proper, it was good to watch today’s draw with more of an interest than hoping, out of sheer malice and petty spite, that Cobblers or Corby would get shafted.

I can’t remember when the early rounds of the Cup began to receive the televised treatment, but it’s not so long since the rattling of the balls was conducted on a Monday lunchtime, and in those years – all too infrequent – when our name was in the hat, the first news came via the stop press in the ET. What sad, unenlightened days before we could sit in our armchairs and enjoy the grimacing features of Jim Rosenthal, as he tees up the proceedings with the air of a creepy butler.

Nowadays they always dredge up a couple of ex players or celebrity guests to make the draw. Today the budget stretched as far as Keith Houchen and Matt Hanlon, whose phone will presumably keep ringing until another non leaguer knocks Sutton off their perch. Had things panned out differently in those last 4 minutes against Fulham, it could have been Westcarr standing there. As it was, our only mention was Hanlon declaring that Sutton would fancy their chances against us, which made me yell with indignation before I paused for a moment and realised he was right.

Before we got to that point there was the delicious agony of the draw, prolonged even further by there being 80 balls bobbling in that drum – 79 of them loaded with the full spectrum of human emotion from Gateshead away to Charlton or the smallest tiddler at home.

One of the iron rules of these occasions is that we are always among the last clubs to be drawn, to wring the maximum torture out of the situation. This time it again seemed to be heading that way, as the possibilities narrowed to best case, home to Plymouth, worst case, away to Plymouth. In the end we have something of a curate’s egg. Not a glamour tie or a money maker, but winnable if we can put out our best team (whatever that may be in two weeks time) and get a step closer to hitting the jackpot.