Carlisle United start their FA Cup journey this afternoon at home to Tranmere Rovers.
And the competition won’t have many bigger supporters than United boss Paul Simpson.
Ahead of the first round tie Simpson said: “It’s still there for me, without a doubt. I still believe it’s the best competition in the world and I’m really happy to be involved and looking forward to it.
“The biggest thing is that I want the players to go and perform and realise the importance of it all. I get the feeling that they do realise the importance of it, we got the FA Cup balls sent to us and we’ve trained with them this week, so it does give you a different feeling.
“I just hope they all go out there and embrace it. I think it’s too early in the competition for the older ones amongst us to use our experiences as examples, but we all know that this competition can be really good.
“I’ve been fortunate to be involved in a semi-final with Wolves, even though we lost that one against a really good Arsenal side at Villa Park, and I was lucky enough to be invited to the final by Man City when I was still a schoolboy, and that was an unbelievable experience.
“I was playing for Raffles Rovers on a Friday night at the Sheepmount and when I came off the pitch my dad told me that I’d been invited to the Tottenham game at Wembley. They were after getting me to sign, and it was the game where they drew.
“Thankfully I wasn’t there when Ricky Villa scored that magnificent goal in the replay. That was a lightbulb moment for me when I knew I wanted to be part of the game, so I suppose that’s the best moment for me.
“During my first year in management at Rochdale we got through to the fifth round and played Wolves on a Sunday live on BBC.
“The whole excitement that goes with things like this gives the whole place a buzz, and we had some really good victories to get to that point.
“It gives everybody something to go on and it gives the fans a bit of a lift. I get the feeling the FA Cup isn’t as special to supporters as it used to be, but I’m sure if we win some games it will become a bit more important to them.”
