The Road to Wembley has started… with a 320-mile round trip.

People forget the FA Cup doesn’t start in January, here we are Saturday 31st August, and Winchester City are in FA Cup action away at Tavistock, West Devon.

Some sides have actually already played in the competition, City joined it this year in the First Qualifying Round, some sides start it in the Extra Preliminary Round (two rounds before this one!)

Miss and I dropped Mummy off at work and headed West along the A303. We stopped off just outside Yeovil and made brief stops at Honiton and Okehampton too before heading across Dartmoor and arriving in Tavistock several hours before kick-off.

We wandered into the town centre and the park before heading back to the ground an hour before kick-off.

Before going into the ground we had a drink in the bar opposite - Miss had a chocolate milk in there and a bum change (yes that’s right baby changing facilities adjacent to the ground, win!!!)

We entered through the Main Entrance, not a turnstile as we were listed as ‘Guests’ for City. A nicer entrance than usual, but sadly once through the door, it was down some steps 🤦‍♂️ not ideal with a pushchair!

There was lots going on inside the ground with a burger bar, club shop and refreshments bar (which sold ice cream much to Miss’ delight, and in the sunshine it was very warm indeed!)

Miss had a great time running loops around the refreshments hatch - the volunteers thoroughly enjoyed Miss’ company.

Miss had to be prized away from the refreshments area and we headed round to the Away Dugout to say hello to everybody.

Miss had her favourite red and black football with her and was playing with Uncle Mike throughout the game whilst running up and down around the away bench.

There were lots of grass areas for Miss to roam around and she had great fun running up and down the grass bank and kicking her ball around.

On the pitch, a first-half goal from Luka Chalwell won the tie for City, the draw for the next round takes place on Monday.

The volunteers were lovely at Tavistock, great bar with baby changing facilities, good reasonably priced food, shame about the steps going down the main stand, but otherwise a great day out!