WHENEVER the FA Cup rolls around, nostalgia takes over in this part of the world.

For many, simply walking into Cantilever Park brings back instant memories of the night that catapulted Warrington Town onto the national stage.

Beating Exeter City – defying a 100-place gap between the sides in the footballing pyramid – at a full-to-bursting ground on primetime BBC television arguably still remains the greatest moment for the round-ball game in this town’s history.

There have been a few more to rival it since then such has been the growth of football in Warrington in recent years, but Craig Robinson’s winning goal will always be remembered as the Genesis moment for that exponential rise.

Now, as Town’s latest quest to repeat that golden run to the second round proper begins, it would be fitting if it were to happen in this season as the 10th anniversary of that fateful November night approaches.

Since Robinson’s flicked header from a corner propelled Yellows onto the nation’s back pages, there has been success aplenty for the club who now operate at their highest ever level in the National League North.

Warrington Town is a very different football club to what it was 10 years ago, but success in knockout competitions have eluded them ever since.

The closest they have come to reaching the first round proper in the past decade was the 2018-19 campaign, when they reached the fourth qualifying round only to fall in a replay to National League side FC Halifax Town.

Of their other eight entries into the competition in that time, they have exited at the earliest possible stage six times including in each of the past four seasons.

Everyone at the club knows it is about time that record changed, and this would be the perfect season in which to do it – and not just for sentimental reasons.

Financially, the club needs all the help it can get as it battles to exist in the land of the giants that is their current division, whether that money goes directly into manager Mark Beesley’s playing budget or towards the off-field infrastructure.

In prize money alone, reaching the first round proper would earn the club just over £18,000. When gate receipts and potential broadcast earnings are taken into account, that figure goes up further still.

The 2014-15 run was estimated to have made the club a sum comfortably in six figures and right now, that would make a world of difference.

On the field too, the momentum a cup run generates can have a huge galvanising impact and for a team whose start to the league season has been somewhat stuttering, it could give them the boost they need.

In order to achieve all of that, however, there is a job to do on the pitch starting with a second qualifying round home tie with Radcliffe on Saturday.

The journey towards the next “Craig Robinson moment” starts now.