Paulton prepares for Norwich City FA Cup clash

Writer David Clensy pays a visit to Paulton.

The club shield is proudly embellished on the side of Paulton Rovers FC's modest stadium, above the date 1881 – a reminder of the decades football fans in the Somerset village near Midsomer Norton have had to wait for their taste of FA Cup glory.

But more than a century of waiting came to an end last weekend, when the tiny Sunday side was given an FA Cup first-round draw against League One side Norwich City.

Last Saturday the Paulton boys beat Chippenham Town 3-0 in the latest qualifying round, having previously defeated Bideford Town, Tiverton Town, Didcot Town and Newport County on the way.

The club's run of results has led to speculation that it could become the traditional FA Cup giant-killers in this year's competition. But for the moment, everyone at Paulton is still revelling at the idea of taking on the Canaries at home.

The match will net the team a financial windfall too – with ITV paying the club £70,000 to televise the match. The Zamaretto Southern Football League club was already set to bank about £30,000 from the visit of Paul Lambert's first division side but, with the TV cameras coming in, the club has been swamped by cash-wielding advertisers offering tens of thousands of pounds in sponsorship deals.

But as I arrive at the Winterfield Road ground, the initial jubilation seems to have turned to abject panic about the task ahead.

Club Secretary Andy Harris opens the door, ashen-faced, and drawn.

He admits: "It's all a bit fraught. Hectic simply isn't the word."

Around the club bar, everyone from the treasurer Les Jones to the chairman David Bissex are pacing up and down with phones glued to their ears, as they try to carve out the kinds of advertising opportunities that come once in a generation for a club of Paulton's standing.

Manager Andy Jones is looking equally tense; he's surrounded by a mountain of paperwork as he sits back and looks out of the window across the pitch.

"It's incomprehensible how many things we need to organise," he says, shaking his head. "Council permission, health and safety, police coverage, ambulances – not to mention a series of temporary stands.

"On a normal match day we have an average of 225 spectators, but we're hoping to get our capacity up to around 3,500 for the match on November 7."

It is, Andy admits, something of a logistical nightmare. But he says the players themselves are keeping their minds entirely on the game.

"All the guys are understandably excited about playing against Norwich, and when I give my team talk before the match, I'll be telling them that they are going out there to win," he said.

When he's not bellowing orders from the touchline, Andy runs his own floristry business, Flower Vision in Feeder Road, Bristol.

"I have a staff of 25 people at Flower Vision, but I have to admit that over the past week they've been running the place without me. I've been here at Paulton Rovers virtually around the clock."

But Andy believes all the hard work and determination could be worth its weight in gold against the Canaries, who benefit from the enthusiastic support of their chairman, TV cook Delia Smith.

He said: "It may be the case that realistically we don't stand a great chance, but you have to go out there intending to win. For Paulton, this match is like our own FA Cup final. The draw against the Canaries alone is a massive event for us. But the FA Cup does have a history of big sides being defeated by clubs from a long way below them in the football leagues, so we're seriously keeping our fingers crossed."

Outside, groundsman Rob Filer is examining the pitch with an expert eye and keeping his fingers crossed for precisely the right amount of rain to fall over the next week-and-a-half.

It will be the biggest match he's seen in 36 years of tending the Paulton pitch.

He said: "I've certainly put a lot of weed killer down this week. I work as a manager for a transport company in Avonmouth by day but looking after the ground here has taken up most of my spare time since the Seventies."

These days Rob's sons Chris, 23, and Mike, 30, help out with the constant cycle of mowing and raking.

"We cut the grass yesterday, and we'll do it again in the middle of next week, and probably again on the Friday before the match for good luck," he said.

"I think Norwich should be quite impressed with the state of the pitch when they get here. It's a nice even surface."

Rob said this will be the club's biggest match since it hosted Crewe Alexander in the first round of the FA Cup back in 1906.

He said: "My father, no longer with us, remembered the occasion, and was there to see Paulton defeated on that occasion. They had a crowd of 2,000 here that day too. We've had to wait for more than a century, but now we've got another chance of FA Cup glory."

Resident Brian Harrington, 78, who lives directly opposite the Winterfield Road ground, also has memories of Paulton Rovers' bygone glories.

He said: "I played for the team throughout the Fifties. It was a big part of my youth, so I can't wait to see them play against Norwich. It's a big thing for the village. Literally everyone is talking about it. As you walk around, all you hear is people chatting about the game. It's an extraordinary atmosphere."

Demand for tickets is expected to be extremely high, so the club is preparing a voucher system, whereby club members and those attending this Saturday's match against Taunton are to be given preference to buy tickets.

James Brain, of nearby High Littleton, says his children Harry, five, and Olivia, two, are excited about the prospect of seeing a major league team playing at Winterfield Road.

He said: "People tend to have two teams here. They support a top flight team and they also support Paulton. I'm a Manchester United fan, but I often come to see Paulton play.

"It's going to be so exciting to see the match."

Tony Walsh, press officer at the club, says there is even a regular supporter at Paulton whose "top flight" support generally goes to Norwich, the city of his birth.

He said: "He's keeping an understandably low profile. He normally comes to matches with a Paulton jersey over a Norwich City one. But the good news is, he's promised us that he will be backing Paulton during the big match on November 7."