The BBC have an overly romantic attitude to the FA Cup, if you ask me. They could have shown Bradford v Tranmere, or Oldham v Crewe, or even Bristol Rovers v Rushden if they really wanted that Ealing comedy vibe. But no, they're in love with the idea that the FA Cup is about the minnows, so instead we get Harrogate Railway v Mansfield Town.

Harrogate is a genteel Yorkshire town of the kind you could easily imagine BBC producers living in, and such makes a change from the genteel, producer-friendly Home Counties towns that normally get televised at this stage of the competition. It does have a population of 85,000, and it's perhaps not entirely implausible for their football team to hope for some kind of a run in the cup. Harrogate Railway, though, aren't Harrogate's main team. That's right, we're watching the second best team in Harrogate. The best team in Harrogate, quite reasonably known as Harrogate Town, are two divisions higher. Mansfield are a cool 81 places higher in the league structure.

The ground is less of a stadium, more of a rec. You know, a rec. Oh, so you didn't grow up in a small English town, kicking a ball about the local recreation ground and rolling around in the mud. Well I did, and trust me, we're not quite in jumpers for goalposts territory today, but we're not far off. On one side of the pitch, they've actually used the border between grass and mud to mark the touchline. An admirably efficient use of resources it may be, but it isn't exactly conducive to the long throw in. Apart from anything, it's unnervingly like a speedway track down there.

Even on the pitch itself, it rapidly becomes clear that we aren't in for a cultured spectacle. It looks green enough on the long shots, but in the closeups you can see that chlorophyll is gradually losing the battle with an older and simpler kind of primordial soup. The Harrogate players are clearly used to re-enacting Passchendaele every weekend, and use their knowledge of the field to hop precisely from one divot to the next, but I'm sure I saw at least one Mansfield midfielder sinking into a soggy bit, never to be seen again.

I turn to Channel 5, where they've got the Fiorentina (Florence) v Inter Milan game. Fiorentina's stadium looks like it's been dropped in from space by a technologically superior civilisation, and the players must be from another planet as well. I've not seen so many dainty little flicks since Ross Dawson won the Kenilworth under 9s Subbuteo championship.

So I'm quite surprised to find myself switching back to the northern mudbath. It's the invective I crave as much as anything. Fuck off, you fucking Yorkshire twat, comes the cry from the Mansfield end, and you recall the passion generated by county boundaries. Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire are different places. There's the M1, and then there's the A1, and never the twain shall meet.

Some of the rivalries in that part of the world have been simmering for a while. In the centre of York is a small keep on a hill, known as Clifford's tower. It's called that because they hung the Lancastrian Roger Clifford there in 1365, and left his body there for years. After a while it became a landmark - turn left at Clifford, and it's the second hovel on the right - and the name stuck. Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire don't have quite such a brutal tradition, but lots of people still remember the differing responses of the two counties to the miners' strike.

In the event, Harrogate make a game of it. They lose 3-2, but win all our hearts, yada yada yada. As it turns out it's not just the invective I crave, it's also the soul. And the romance. After the game they have the draw for the next round, and Mansfield get a trip to Brighton. Bristol City, meanwhile, are drawn at home to Middlesbrough, for the second year in a row. After taking them to a replay, extra time and penalties last year, and beating Watford 2-1 away yesterday to go back into the playoff zone, we won't feel overawed. Rovers have to go to Fulham, and will.

On another planet, probably the same one Inter Milan come from, they drew groups for Euro 2008. The most interesting group has Italy, France, Holland and Rumania in it. I'm going to stick my neck out, and say that's the group the winner's coming from. More about that soon, I'm sure.