Only 13 miles separate Tamworth from Nuneaton and tonight both will hope they are travelling on the same road to FA Cup immortality.

While Nuneaton Borough will be heading 200 miles to the North-east to face Premiership crisis club Middlesbrough, A5 neighbours Tamworth have home advantage against Stoke City.

Although respective managers Mark Cooper and Roger Ashby accept the realistic outcome of the FA Cup third-round replays is defeat, when has commonsense applied to the romance of the Cup?

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Boro and fellow part-timers Lambs have helped rekindle the nation's love affair with the greatest competition of them all, and created more headlines than a limousine full of fake sheikhs.

Not that Cooper and Ashby, having got their hands on the FA Cup at the Lamb yesterday, want their football fantasy to end just yet.

"There's no competition like the FA Cup," Ashby said. "I was talking to someone after we drew with Middlesbrough at Manor Park who was from the BBC World Service. The game was broadcast live to 66 countries around the world. That puts it into perspective.

"All of a sudden Nuneaton Borough is being mentioned all around the world. That's the interest the FA Cup generates."

As Ashby admitted, it is also a financial lifeline, with the Nationwide North club making about £200,000 so far.

Conference side Tamworth, however, are aggrieved that their dumping Hartlepool and Bournemouth out of the competition and drawing with a full-strength Stoke side at the Britannia Stadium have failed to reap full reward.

Television companies have snubbed their hopes of a live television broadcast which would have brought £150,000 into the coffers.

Cooper said: "You look at the replay ties and, without any disrespect to any other team, you would say there could be a shock at Tamworth. I know the chairman and the people at the club are angry at not being picked for a televised game but you have to get on with what you are dealt with. Maybe if we get to the final, we will get on."

Nuneaton have played enough matches to have been to the final and reached the following year's semi-final, had they started in the third round. Middlesbrough is their tenth match in a run which began against AFC Telford

United in September. There will be fewer stages more grand than the Riverside.

The players travel north this morning - to be followed by more than 4,500 fans during the day - but Ashby was on a scouting mission before the memorable first match.

He said: "Going to the Riverside was a game we never thought would happen. I went up there with my assistant Kevin Wilkin to watch Middlesbrough's game with Manchester City and you think 'what would it be like here to come here and play ourselves?'

"You think it's a million miles away. But now we've got the opportunity to play there and we want to go and enjoy the occasion.

"For us to get any sort of result they are going to have to have an awfully bad day and we have to have all the luck in the world and play extremely well.

"We know we will have to defend well. My goalkeeper Darren Acton will have to be man of the match for us to get through."

The Lamb is a galaxy away from the Brittannia Stadium but that could be Tamworth's biggest asset. The facilities will be an eye-opener to some of Stoke's squad used to a more cosseted lifestyle.

"It's a typical romantic FA Cup tie," former Birmingham City player Cooper said. "When they turn up here at the Lamb they will see 4,000 people packed in there screaming and shouting at them. If they react properly to it they will win the game. If they don't and they don't quite fancy it then anything can happen."