For your average human, falling leaves, frost on the window, blossoming flowers and the chime of various instruments bellowing from an ice cream van determine the four seasons of the year. But for the football fan, that calendar that you bought from WHSmith last summer looks drastically different. ‘Summer’ is replaced by European Championships, World Cup or merely the birth of the domestic season, ‘Spring’ is taken over by the latter stages of European competition, ‘Autumn’ is disposed of in favour of the Champions League group stages and ‘Winter’ is crossed off with a big black marker pen to be replaced with FA Cup football, good and proper. Exciting, isn’t it?

Now that endless weeks of qualifying rounds, competed by non-league teams most of us will never hear of again, are over, what is commonly referred to as ‘the FA Cup proper’ can commence. With a number of ties whetting the appetite of the most fervent FA Cup followers with still a matter of weeks to go before the Third Round, I’m here to take you through a few of the shiny red balls that caught my eye when the draw was made.

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