SPAOTP's Road to Wembley: FA Cup 2nd Qualifying Round

Welcome one and all as we once again head off on The Road to Wembley.

As you'll remember from last time, we're tracking the progress of one team from the early rounds of the FA Cup (sponsored by E.On, never forget that) through to the Final. We began with the First Qualifying Round two weeks ago, and there our chosen team was Burnham Ramblers.

Sadly for Burnham, the writing was on the wall as they played away to Chelmsford City, operating two tiers above them in the Ryman League (formerly the Isthmian League) Premier Division. The result may not have come as much of a surprise to many (especially the home fans), but the 5-0 trouncing of Burnham sadly brought their run in the Cup to an end.

Fortunately for us, that's not the case as we now throw all our support behind Chelmsford City as we head into the Second Qualifying Round. They, too, are playing away today and are up against Hemel Hempstead Town from the British Gas Business League (formerly Southern League) Premier Division.

(And in case you're wondering, the Southern League and Isthmian League are both on the same tier, so to speak - that's three levels below Coca-Cola League 2.)

So what do we know about Chelmsford City? Well, they're sitting third in the Ryman Premier League table out of 22 teams having won five and drawn two of their games. Their top scorer in the league so far this season is Kezie Ibe with five goals but Ricky Holmes and penalty specialist Stuart Ainsley are not far behind on four.

Chelmsford City's home ground is Melbourne Park and there you'll typically find between 1,000 and 1,500 people cheering them on every other week. Their manager is Jeff King who was head honcho at Canvey Island up to May 2006 but when he left for Chelmsford, many of his old players followed him up the A130 too.

Chelmsford's last Southern League title win was in 1972 but they stand a decent chance of getting another one this season - if only they could improve their away form. At home so far they've won all five games including an impressive 7-0 victory over Maidstone United, but on their travels they have just two draws and two defeats to their name.

That sounds a little ominous to us, especially as their opponents, Hemel Hempstead, are currently top of the British Gas Premier Division. The bookmakers currently have Hemel as the favourites to win today's match but we know Chelmsford can do it, don't we? Let's wish them well as they go into battle today and if you're going along to the game, why not leave us a comment to tell us how it all went? We'd be glad to hear from you...

While we're on the subject of such things, we'd like to tell you about some more people who are doing their own 'Road to Wembley'. First of all, there's Paul Kirkwood who's once again embarking on his FA Cup Ground Hopper this season. He's a bit of an old hand at this game compared to us green naive types, so it's with some confidence we can say that his website is one that's well worth visiting. It's wonderfully written and captures that magical essence of the early rounds of the FA Cup (sponsored by... oh, you know the rest). Check it out and leave him a comment to show your support - it means a lot to us blogger types... :)

Also, a couple of days after the last round of the Cup took place, we heard from Brooner who's on the glory trail with the rest of us. His exploits are detailed on his blogsite 'Did He Really Mean It?' where, as before, you'll get a great insight into the highs and lows of the early rounds of the competition. More great writing awaits you there, so drop by and say 'hello' - hell, even swap notes about your travels, if you like. Brooner will be looking forward to hearing from you.

Best of luck to all of you following the Second Qualifying Round today and do let us know how your team got on. Meantime, if you want to keep up-to-date with us and all our other Road To Wemblists, check out the special section we've created to the right of the page.

The Friday List of Little or No Consequence #31

Missing: Believed playing in the Championship...
23 Former Premier League Stars Who Have Since 'Dropped Down A Level'

1. Nick Barmby (formerly of Tottenham, now playing for Hull City)
2. Michael Bridges (formerly of Leeds, now playing for Hull City)
3. Deon Burton (formerly of Derby, now playing for Sheffield Wednesday)
4. Luke Chadwick (formerly of Man United, now playing for Norwich City)
5. Dion Dublin (formerly of Coventry, now playing for Norwich City)
6. Robbie Fowler (formerly of Liverpool (twice), now playing for Cardiff City)
7. Keith Gillespie (formerly of Newcastle, now playing for Sheffield United)
8. Michael Gray (formerly of Leeds, now playing for Wolves)
9. Jon Harley (formerly of Chelsea, now playing for Burnley)
10. Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink (formerly of Chelsea, now playing for Cardiff City)
11. Lee Hendrie (formerly of Aston Villa, now playing for Sheffield United)
12. Darren Huckerby (formerly of Leeds, now playing for Norwich City)
13. Michael Hughes (formerly of West Ham, now playing for Coventry City)
14. Francis Jeffers (formerly of Arsenal, now playing for Sheffield Wednesday)
15. Kevin Lisbie (formerly of Charlton, now playing for Colchester United)
16. Neil Mellor (formerly of Liverpool, now playing for Preston)
17. Jay-Jay Okocha (formerly of Bolton, now playing for Hull City)
18. Brett Ormerod (formerly of Southampton, now playing for Preston)
19. Teddy Sheringham (formerly of Tottenham, now playing for Colchester United)
20. Trevor Sinclair (formerly of Man City, now playing for Cardiff City)
21. David Unsworth (formerly of Everton (twice), now playing for Burnley)
22. Ronnie Wallwork (formerly of Man United, now playing for West Bromwich Albion)
23. Dean Windass (formerly of Bradford, now playing for Hull City)

Blackburn in Europe - the biggest turn-off of all?

The people behind the scenes at Chelsea have obviously been getting a little concerned of late. After The Blues' first Champions League game of the season attracted a crowd of 'only' 24,973, the powers that be have decided to lower the price of the cheapest Champions League tickets from £45 to £36.

With seats to fill, the priority is obviously to maximise revenue but to say there's a crisis going on is to miss the point. Chelsea's match against Rosenborg was the first European home tie of the season and the opposition was, with all due respect, not the kind to make fans queue up round the block for 48 hours in advance demanding a ticket.

Yes, the price of the cheapest tickets was rather high, but that has been addressed now and I for one wouldn't be surprised to see considerably more of the 40,055 seats filled for the next game.

Chelsea at least managed to fill over half of their stadium for that match against the Norwegians recently. If you're looking for a more serious situation than that, turn your attention towards Blackburn Rovers.

In the Premier League last season, Blackburn's Ewood Park stadium was, on average, filled to only 68% of its 31,154 capacity - the lowest of all clubs in the top flight. That works out at an average home attendance of 21,271, but if you take the average from all Blackburn's UEFA Cup ties played at home last year, the figure drops to 17,592.

It will perhaps come as no surprise to learn that the cost of the cheapest ticket at Blackburn for their upcoming home tie against Larissa on October 4th will be just £10. The question is, will it tempt the fans to go along and support their team as they embark on another exciting European campaign?

If last night's Carling Cup match against Birmingham - watched by just 9,205 - is anything to go by, I'd say perhaps not.

It's therefore unfair to point to the empty seats at Chelsea in their match against Rosenborg claiming a crisis is unfolding. For a real crisis, head up the M6 and look for the Blackburn turn-off.

Give the referees a penalty

I dunno. Why is it every weekend the whole of the civilised world shakes its head as one at the good, bad or indifferent refereeing decisions witnessed in the Premier League? I'm not one to moan - really I'm not. I realise better than anyone that refereeing is a difficult job and that the errors of judgement they make are merely the actions of an ordinary human being, but things have now reached a critical point.

Last weekend I started to lose count of the many and varied instances of what I thought was bad refereeing. In the Midlesbrough v Sunderland game, there were three handballs that could have resulted in free kicks in dangerous areas of the pitch which went undetected. All of them were more than just 'ball to hand' situations and all would have seen a free kick given at a different ground on a different day.

The Man. United v Chelsea game was liberally littered with questionable refereeing anomalies. For a start, official Mike Dean decided to give Mikkel Jon Obi a red card for a tackle which, though crude, was worthy of at most a yellow card. He then decided that two minutes of stoppage time would be played at the end of the first half, but having allowed the injury time period to inexplicably last to a third minute, Carlos Tevez was able to score to put the home team ahead 1-0.

It's one thing for a referee or his assistants to make isolated misjudgements, but when several occur in one match to say nothing of several other matches, you have to start believing that something's wrong somewhere.

So here's what I think. In order to root out the bad referees, we should create a rating system that gives penalty points for poor performances. At the end of the month, the three referees with the most penalty points drop down a level (i.e. Premier League to Championship) and someone from the level below with the least number of penalty points comes up to replace them.

And how would points be awarded? Well here's what I've come up with so far using a scale of 1 for insignificant decisions to 10 for hideous ones...

Incorrect awarding of a red/yellow card: 7 points
Too many/too few red/yellow cards awarded: 6 points
Bad offside decision: 7 points
Poor handball decision: 7 points
Poor timekeeping: 5 points
Failing to realise a player has been booked three times: 10 points

I'm sure there are more we can think of prior to sending such a suggestion off to Sepp Blatter. What would you add to the list and how many points would you allocate for each item?