ASPEN WAITE ARENA
FA CUP PLEMINARY ROUND
AUGUST 26, 2018
GROUND NO 211
AAAH, the magic of the cup.
It was the FA Cup that first awakened my interest in non-league football. Tuning in on a Saturday night to watch first round highlights on telly and being introduced to teams I'd never heard of from places I never knew existed take on the relative big guns from the lofty heights of the Football League at tiny, ramshackle grounds was something to savour every year.
Tales of the left-back being a postman who was up at 4am to do his round before heading to the ground or the painter and decorator who pulled on the No 6 shirt in the very dressing room he'd given a lick of paint to no more than a week earlier... Magical stuff.
I fancied a bit of that and started checking out non-league grounds for myself.
It would take the most ambitious - or foolish - of gamblers to have a wager on any club making it all the way to Wembley after appearing at the preliminary round stage. You'd probably get better odds on Lord Lucan singing the National Anthem while sitting on Shergar before the final kicks off.
But the FA Cup is nonetheless a 'thing' at this level. Dreams of making it all the way to the first round proper and playing Sunderland or Swindon at home live on the box are very much alive and kicking.
And there's the cash too. Today's winners picked up £2,890 in prize money for clearing the preliminary round hurdle. That's more than Heybridge Swifts banked from attracting a crowd of 206 for their first ever fixture against West Essex.
Deal with their first qualifying round opponents and they'll have a bumper cheque for six grand to pay into the Heybridge branch of the HSBC.
So extra preliminary round day seemed to be an appropriate way to collect my first tick of the season.
Situated just outside Maldon, the Aspen Waite Arena is a neat little ground and has been the Swifts' home since 1966 after a troubled period in which their original ground became hardcore for a new shopping centre and they nearly went under. Prior to that it was a carrot field.
Entry is via turnstiles behind one goal, the changing rooms immediately to the left, a tea bar a little further on and a sizable Union Flag fluttering proudly atop its pole.
Midway down one side is the main stand, a breeze block and steel structure built in the mid-90s with possibly one or two more supporting poles than what any spectator sitting there would want for ideal viewing.
Opposite is an older, wooden stand containing wo rows wooden slats arranged in such a way that I was left confused as to whether both were for sitting on or whether the bottom row was for putting your feet on if you were sitting on the upper level. Or both. In the end I avoided the potential for making myself look silly by walking past it to take up a standing position in the covered end beyond it.
The Swifts are flying high this season and a 3-0 win put them into the pot for the next FA Cup draw. It's two early for replica cups made out of tinfoil on the terraces or songs about going to Wemberleeee, but it's a few quid in the bank and a step closer to potentially earning the 'plucky minnows' tag in tie against someone much higher up the pyramid.
