FA CUP SECOND ROUND DRAW, MONDAY 6th NOVEMBER [BBC2 7PM]

The draw for the Second Round of this years Emirates FA Cup will be made later on tonight, it will be made live on the BBC Two Channel and while we are currently struggling in the league for form and results it will be good to mount a reasonable Cup run for a change and having beaten Lincoln City 1-0 at home in round one on Saturday.

There are 40 Numbers in the "hat" for the Second Round, the draw is live shortly after 7pm Monday night and will be hosted by Mark Chapman, Matt Smith will supervise the draw with assistance from ex Newcastle and Manchester United striker Andy Cole and ex Bolton and Chesterfield striker Kevin Davies who will take charge of drawing out the numbers live.

AFC Wimbledon are ball No.22. Once again we hope for an easy home draw to see us in with a shout of the lucrative 3rd round however that didn't go well for us last season (losing to Sutton United and missing out on ties against Leeds and Arsenal) so lets just go one round at a time. Oxford City, Maidstone United and Boreham Wood caused the biggest upsets in Saturday's FA Cup first round lets see how they get rewarded.

The Full 2nd round draw will appear here during the evening as the ties are confirmed and the matches are to be played over the period of 1st - 4th December with TV games to be decided later but the BBC game is usually on Friday night.

Woking or Bury	vs	Tranmere Rovers or Peterborough
MK Franchise Scum	vs	Maidstone United
Newport County	vs	Cambridge United
Wycombe Wanderers	vs	Leatherhead or Billericay
Port Vale	vs	Yeovil Town
Shrewsbury Town	vs	Morecambe
Doncaster Rovers	vs	Northampton Town or Scunthorpe United
Slough Town	vs	Rochdale
AFC Wimbledon	vs	Charlton Athletic
Stevenage	vs	Swindon Town
Mansfield Town	vs	Guiseley or Accrington Stanley
Gateshead	vs	Luton Town
Bradford City	vs	Plymouth Argyle
Blackburn Rovers	vs	Crewe Alexandra

AFC Fylde

vs

Wigan Athletic

Gillingham

vs

Carlisle United

Notts County

vs

Oxford City

Forest Green Rovers

vs

Exeter City

Chorley or Fleetwood Town

vs

Hereford

Coventry City

vs

Boreham Wood

So the Dons are at home and have to take on Charlton Athletic again having lost recently in the league at The Valley 1-0 last month. 

FA CUP 1ST ROUND -- WIMBLEDON vs LINCOLN CITY SAT 4th NOVEMBER 2017

It's FA CUP FIRST ROUND Day this weekend and the draw has given us a home tie against League Two outfit LINCOLN CITY. Recently promoted from the National League Conference as Champions last season they are doing well this season too back in League Two and currently occupy 9th place, and we cannot forget they had a wonderful cup run last term beating the likes of Premier League Burnley to reach the Quarter Finals as a non league club. Would be good to have a decent cup run this season ourselves although the main priorities are consolidation in the league and moving away from the bottom four. Still waiting for further news on the return to Plough Lane but hopefully it's just red tape and total demolition of the old Greyhound Stadium should be commencing soon.

FORM GUIDE 
(Last 6 matches in their respective leagues, starting with most recent)
AFC Wimbledon -- LLWWLW
Lincoln City -- DWLWDW



LAST TIME OUT
AFC Wimbledon 0  Charlton 1

Lincoln City 0  Crawley Town 0

We come into this important FA Cup game on the back of two defeats to Plymouth and Charlton and clearly the problem is one of scoring goals although we are not yet being smashed every week it is beginning to feel like it. Lincoln will fancy this after their antics last season where they had a wonderful cup run as a Non League side reaching the quarter finals. Can Neal Ardley get the players fired up, can we at least have some shots on goal because without that we really are in for a long season. 

Despite the poor form I'm certain we will have plenty of fans going again to cheer on the boys in Yellow and Blue to more FA Cup glory, however my head rules over my heart and I'll be having a small wager on Lincoln @3/1 to win to give me a little consolation if we slip up.

Updates will be published with team news and more news as and when it comes through. 

Line Ups (Confirmed);

AFC WIMBLEDON

Odds -- 11/10 (William Hill) 

Long (GK),  Fuller (c),  Charles,  Oshilaja,  Kennedy,  Forrester,  Abdou,  Soares,  McDonald,  Taylor,  Barcham

Subs – McDonnell (Gk),  Sibbick,  Robinson,  Meades,  Kaja,  Egan,  Hartigan

LINCOLN CITY 
Odds -- 3/1 (BetVictor) 

Vickers (Gk),  Long,  Dickie,  Waterfall,  Eardley,  Bostwick,  Woodyard,  Knott,  Green,  Palmer,  Arnold   

Subs – Farman (Gk),  Whitehouse,  Ginnelly,  Rhead,  Chapman,  Stewart,  Horton



H/T Score – 1 - 0

First Half Comment;
Lincoln City kick off to get this first round FA Cup tie underway, and a busy first 10 mins which sees Dons go close early and then a good finish from Dons striker Lyle Taylor and we're 1-0 ahead which must help to settle the nerves amongst the staff and home supporters. 

Lincoln have a few half chances of their own but easily blocked and picked out by Long in the Dons goal, and after the fairly open start the match settles down a little with the only real news being that goalscorer Lyle Taylor has been injured and taken off early replaced by Jon Meades so some reorganisation required and we are mid way through the first half now and dare I suggest that the Dons are trying to hang on to this slender lead.

F/T Score – 1 - 0

Match Summary;
While Lincoln cut out most of the running in the early part of the second half they are unable to capitalise with several shots off target, Dons are able to regroup and weather that storm but fail to mount much of a counter during the half, it's clear that confidence is very low and this could be a struggle not just to hang on here but I mean the rest of the season under Neal Ardley. Still nothing happening so we'll put on some music instead ....  

My Man of the Match – George Long.

Referee -- Our referee for this important first round FA Cup tie has been confirmed as Andy Woolmer (51) from Northamptonshire who last season was officiating in the Championship and has plenty of experience, and doesn't appear to be particularly card happy, so we ought to be in fairly safe hands.

Attendance – 3,394.

Next match:
Saturday 11th November vs Peterborough (Home)
League One 3:00pm 

KEMPTON PARK RACES 2017 -- WEDNESDAY NIGHTS #30 1st NOVEMBER

Welcome to meeting number thirty of 2017 here at Kempton Park and after last weeks loss we have an even bigger deficit to overcome and come into this week with a sum of -53.17 points to level stakes at SP. We are into the last two months of this year long blog and whatever happens we will reset on January 1st and go again into 2018. 

As we continue to focus on the handicap contests for each meeting we will also occasionally include a feature listed or conditions event too. Keeping records of our endeavours to a 1pt level stake at SP, naturally we will personally be looking to get better odds but for the purpose of these results here we simply record to SP returns.

We will keep up with our occasional lay opportunities of short priced favourites too, our last pair of selections ended in a win and a loss again so it's a mixed bag but to be fair they are all usually short price favs and undeterred we will see if there is another selection for tonight. Naturally we will keep these results separately from the handicap figures. 

This Wednesday is meeting number thirty for the 2017 season and we are expecting an eight race card tonight with four handicaps to enjoy, tonight's action will commence at 16:25 with the 6f Nursery event for 2yo's.
 

Here's a link to this Wednesday's race card; RACECARD

The going on the polytrack surface is described as 'standard to slow' and the current weather forecast is for a cloudy day with a good chance of some rain, expecting a max temperature of about 17C by the time the meeting gets underway.

Our eight race card tonight now has four handicap contests for us to review, there might even be a lay bet but that will be updated later;

17:55 -- 1m Handicap.
Not a very good looking handicap with most of the field appearing to be in decline, taking a chance with a couple of lightly raced horses WAHIBA [Non Runner] / SPUN GOLD [5th 7/2].

18:55 -- 1m 7f 218y Handicap.
The stayers contest tonight can go to one of the previous course and distance winners, our first selection is DENMEAD [Non Runner] who was upped in trip and class last time out but finished midfield in the Cesarewitch trial at Newmarket but is considered based on previous runs here including a win. 

Also considered at a decent price too is GOLLY MISS MOLLY [5th 20/1] a multi winning staying Mare she should relish this contest and ought to be thereabouts in the finish.

19:25 -- 1m 3f 219y Handicap (3yo).
A small field of seven for this middle distance event for three year olds, where HAJAAM [NAP - 5th 5/4F] looks a strong favourite and shouldn't be opposed in this field. The opposition looks to come from Michael Bell's YAMARHABA MALAYEEN [Lay - 4th 5/1] but will aim to make that our lay tonight.

19:55 -- 1m 3f 219y Handicap.
Our finale tonight has a field of fourteen and it's the pair of BERMONDSEY BELLE, a three year old filly by Derby winner Sir Percy, and EPSOM SECRET [2nd 8/1] who has several place efforts here, that I like the look of with the former having the excellent assistance of Josephine Gordon so should be well worth a win/place bet.

Staked -- 7 points.
Returns -- 2 points [just 2 non runners, no joy tonight].

Results will appear later tonight. Currently we have a deficit of -53.17 points that we bring forward to this round of racing, lost five points tonight so sadly up to -58.17.

LAYS -- After last weeks successful effort we now stand at 13 from 21 for this season, will try to get a few more favourites beaten before the end of the season.

If we have one or two Lays tonight they will be updated here.
LAY - YAMARHABA MALAYEEN (19:25) Success here with the lay only managing 4th place, 14/22 now.

Our next meeting here at Kempton Park will be in a weeks time on Wednesday 8th November.