Few things stir the spirits of English football clubs more than the prospect of winning the FA Cup, the world's oldest knockout competition.

First contested in 1872, the 'Football Association Cup Final' represents the traditional climax to the English club season each year in May and attracts an enormous worldwide television audience.

The road to Wembley, which has hosted nearly all the FA Cup finals since 1923, starts in the depths of winter when amateur sides battle it out in the preliminary rounds for a place in the first round proper.

The Premiership clubs enter the FA Cup fray at the third-round stage in January and those lesser clubs that have made it to that point dream of a money-spinning draw against one of the giants such as Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool or Chelsea.

United and Arsenal are the most successful teams in the history of the FA Cup with 11 and 10 wins respectively. But for many fans it is the heroic victories of underdogs such as Wimbledon over Liverpool in 1988 and Sunderland over Leeds in 1973 that truly capture the magic of the FA Cup.

In recent years the major clubs have tended to dominate the FA Cup despite often fielding weakened teams in a competition that, for them, plays second fiddle to the more lucrative Premiership and Champions League.

Traditionalists also bemoan the fact that the semi-finals of the FA Cup are now staged at Wembley, rather than at a neutral club ground as before, and that replays have been abandoned in favour of penalty shootouts.