The first of two trips to South-West London is tomorrow evening, with our fifth round FA Cup at tie Fulham, which kicks off at 7.45. And if you can’t make it down there in the middle of the week, it’s live on BBC1.

By road, you need to take junction 15 off the M25 onto the M4, which becomes the A4. Keep following the A4 signs for 11.5 miles till you get to the Hammersmith Flyover Junction, then take the exit marked A306, A315, A219. From the following roundabout follow signs to Putney Bridge, which will bring you into Fulham Palace Road.

You are now just over a mile from the ground and from here you might as well think about parking in the first spot you see. Parking on the streets nearer to the ground is restricted to one hour 'pay & display' on matchdays, and this is strictly enforced by an army of traffic wardens. It’s probably less hassle to park at a tube station further out and complete your journey by underground.

The nearest tube station to Craven Cottage is Putney Bridge (on the Wimbledon Branch of the District Line) which is only a ten-minute walk away, Turn left out of the station and then immediately turn right into a street called Ranelagh Gardens, then just keep going in this direction, keeping the Thames on your left as you cross the main road and go through Bishops Park.

En route you will pass the 'Eight Bells' which is popular with away fans, and an alternative is ‘The Temperance’ which you’ll a few minutes walk further along Fulham High street, going away from the river. There is also ‘Kings Arms’ on the other side of the road from the Temperance, and 'The Crabtree on Rainville Road (10 minutes from the ground) also welcomes away supporters.

Just the other side of the river in Putney there are two Wetherspoons outlets called ‘The Rocket’ and ‘The Railway’, the latter being right outside Putney station (which has 10 trains an hour from Waterloo). The ‘Rocket’ is at the bottom of a semi-circular tower on the riverfront, and nearby is the ‘Boathouse’.

There is also a selection of alcohol available inside the stadium. The High Street is also the best bet for takeaways, which will give you better value for money than anything you could possibly find once you’ve gone through the turnstiles.

When I first came to ‘the Cottage’ in the 1980s there was terracing at both ends, with the one for visitors naturally being open to the elements, but in the years since the club have had to comply with the Taylor report by replacing them with new stands. The latest development is that the Riverside stand has been demolished (though it was only built in 1972, which in my mind is quite recent!) and the new stand built to take it's place is finally been partially opened.

For this game our allocation is a whopping 6,165 compared to about 1,900 for recent league games. This is thanks to FA Cup rules, and we have been given the whole of the Putney End. But with no Premier League rules to limit the price they cost £40 for adults, with various categories of concessions ranging from £15 to £20.

They took a while to sell out, presumably due to a combination of the exorbitant price and the live TV coverage, but they’re no longer on sale on the official Leeds site, so presumably they’ve all been snapped up now. A magnificent effort for a midweek game, even though many of those present will be Leeds fans based in London.

There are a couple of supporting pillars that could impede your view, which is disappointing in a fairly new stand, but this only affects some seats in Row DD and above. There is plenty of legroom, but of course we never sit down anyway. Food and drink is available from a number of outlets and stalls behind the stands, and there are plenty of them, but on the minus side, the pies are the most expensive in the league!

There are still home tickets available on the Fulham website, but they are “Subject to postcode restrictions - we will be monitoring ticket bookings and will terminate any bookings made by customers who live in Leeds (and local areas) who do not have previous booking history with us”. In other words, the many Leeds fans who live in the South-East will have a field day!

If you are in the wrong part of the crowd and want to blend in with the locals, wait till they play ‘London Calling’ by The Clash. You then have to shout the line ‘live by the river’ and point towards the Thames (behind the smart new stand).

To the right of the away stand is the building known as the ‘Cottage’, which thankfully has survived amongst all this modernity as a reminder of an earlier age. But technically this is just a pavilion, as the original cottage was demolished many years ago. The ground capacity will be 29,600 when the new stand is finally completed, but part of the upper tier is still to be opened.

I think it’s absolute sacrilege to move the 5th round of the cup away from the traditional Saturday, but this should be a good trip for those of us who are able to get there.

Some of this stuff came from www.footballgroundguide.com .

Tim Whelan