A curse is lifted, and cider is drunk (my God a lot of cider was drunk!)

With City dropping out of the Conference National last season, it now means that the stripes enter the FA Cup two rounds earlier than last year, entering the venerable competition at the Second Qualifying Round.

The draw had paired the stripes with Buckland Athletic of the Western League Premier Division, and we were to visit there ground on the outskirts of Newton Abbot, Homers Heath. Buckland play in yellow and won the South West Peninsula League last year to get into the Western Football League. Four of us were travelling on the train, so as has been the usual this season, we met up at an early time, got our group 4 saver and set off. The journey was uneventful, and was a direct train, which was nice. However, the train was packed so we stood the whole way and enjoyed the scenery as we travelled along Dawlish Warren and marvelled at the engineering done by IKB to place his railway on edge of the sea.

We arrived into Newton Abbot at 10:38 and wandered around what is a much nicer town than I had expected. The town has a population of 23k and seems to have a nice independent air to it, with a fine array of independent shops, and a model shop which Bath itself can no longer boast of having.

Now if you ever find yourself in Newton Abbot head towards East Street, the street has 8 (eight) pubs along its length and one very important house (more on that later...) the four stripes headed to the beer guide recommended Union Inn, and sat down to a very reasonable and very welcome English breakfast. We left the Union and headed up East Street to the Dartmouth Inn, at this point the away day started to grow into its own.

The Dartmouth is a lovely little traditional boozer, and the array of stripey clothing we were wearing started to attract attention. No-one in the pub had heard of the FA Cup game taking place, so the barmaid rang her son who rearranged his plans to go to the game and she was working out ways she could get there, who says the magic of the cup is dead? A few enjoyable Dartmoor ales were sunk, and two more stripes joined us as we walked to that important house I mentioned.

City boys by Ye Olde Cider Bar

We walked towards the building and saw the name picked out on the side "Ye Olde Cider Bar" that's right, the important house is a cider house, one of only four left in the country. What's a cider house I hear you cry, surely it is just a pub? Well no. A pub sells an array of alcoholic beverages, while a cider house sells only cider (and perry and country wines) The place is amazing, all hard wood tables, cladding and masses of cider barrels. After the disappointments of Dorchester and Salisbury the three establishments of this trip were amazing, but the cider house was the best. Many ciders were sunk before we walked to Homers Heath.

Look at the cider!

The ground is a slightly odd, but lovely little ground, you enter up a steep slope, and pay the entrance fee to a few people by a table (no turnstiles) and walk towards the pitch. There is a large clubhouse with a beer garden type set up, and on the opposite side to the pitch is a large stand, with seating and terracing, a tidy set up and one which must be the envy of many of their Western League competitors.

Big smiles of happy cider drinkers

We went behind the goal City were attacking, and an attempt at hanging flags was made, it took so long for the largest to be hung on the netting, that a steward wandered over, and then laughed at the incompetence and gave up on his original plan of telling Tim to get off of Palmers shoulders.

The offending flag

Buckland belied their lowly league status, and were a very impressive side. City were finding it hard to get a foothold in the game, and Garner had to pull off an impressive save to prevent Buckland taking an early lead.

However, the early storm weathered, the stripes began to fashion chances of their own, a Aaron Brown effort was cleared off the line, and the same player had a freekick saved moments later. Charlie Griffin hit the post when through on goal, and you felt that if City had managed to score at this stage the game would have been easier.

At half time, we went into the excellent clubhouse, and in a first, I won second place in the 50/50 draw and collected an unexpected but gratefully received £20. I started the second half standing on a table in the beer garden area (Buckland fans did it first I'd like to point out!) while finishing my pint. It was from this vantage point, that I saw the first two goals of the game. Buckland took the lead when a freekick wasn't fully cleared and it fell to Gavin Hammon who already has 9 league goals this season, and he added to his tally by firing past Garner.

The goal stopped City in their tracks, and there was a period of the game where the men in black and white couldn't get anywhere or create anything. However, on 59 minutes the ball was fed to Aaron Brown on the left, the fullback took the ball forward before unleashing a hammer blow of a shot which squirmed into the net despite the keepers best efforts.

At this point I moved from my unusual vantage point, to behind the goal again. City's goal led to a sustained period of pressure, and from this point it seemed certain City would score again. This happened on 71 minutes, when Cummings crossed from the right, and Guthrie leapt high to powerfully placed his header into the opposite corner. The game was to finish 2-1 to City, but Buckland did themselves proud and if they played like that it will not be long until they are promoted again. With City winning away, this has finally broken the curse of me not seeing City win away since Barrow in March 2011 (happy days!)

We left the ground, and fatally returned to the cider house, many free tasters were dished out by a friendly barmaid, mead was drunk (who drinks mead!?!?) and the night started to get fuzzy around the edges. We eventually made it back to the station, where I unfortunately had a disco nap, the train was delayed by an hour, and due to stupidity I lost my glasses and Tim hurt himself! We survived though, and Buckland will go down as one of the best away days ever, now to see who comes out of the hat in the draw for the next round.