The FA Trophy gets underway on Saturday.
The FA Carlsberg Trophy
Preliminary Round
Saturday 3 October 2009
Winning clubs will receive £2,000 from The FA prize fund
Click here for all the Preliminary Round fixtures
The 41st FA Trophy competition gets underway with 52 Preliminary Round ties at the weekend. There are 49 on Saturday and three on Sunday. It’s a little under five months since Graham Westley’s Stevenage Borough lifted The Trophy after beating York City 2-0 in The Final before a 27,000 crowd at Wembley.
Even at this early stage of the competition some big names are involved. There are, in fact, almost 20 clubs who have already featured in a Wembley Final – in The FA Trophy itself, The FA Vase or the old FA Amateur Cup.
AFC Totton and Lowestoft Town, who have home ties with Andover and Redbridge respectively on Saturday, have played at the new Wembley. Totton, then in the Wessex League, won the first Vase Final there in 2007; Lowestoft were Vase runners-up to Kirkham & Wesham in the following year.
By contrast, Corinthian Casuals, at home to Worthing on Saturday, appeared in The FA Amateur Cup Final of 1956 against Bishop Auckland. They drew 1-1 before losing the replay 4-1 at Ayresome Park, Middlesbrough’s former ground. The crowd at Wembley was a massive 80,000.
The former Trophy Finalists in Trophy action at the weekend are Leatherhead (1978), Mossley (1980), Leek Town (1990) and Witton Albion (1992).
