The tractors spotted on the pitch at the Crown Ground this week were brought in to lay new drainage pipes to help with the recent Biblical downpours we have had in Accrington.

The land has been saturated so much that rumours were running through town that Buzzer the groundsman was trying to hire a hovercraft to mark out the touchlines.

The hard work paid off and the Barnet game was on, but after 42 minutes you could have forgiven the Stanley faithful for wishing it wasn’t.

On 32 minutes John Miles had been sent off for defending himself against a lunging challenge from a Barnet player who himself should have been the one in the book and then, just before the break, Stanley were forced to substitute experienced Ian Dunbavin and bring on the young keeper Dean Bouzanis.

Barnet equalised straight after the break but, only three minutes later, Michael Symes put the Reds back in front with another thunderbolt out of the top drawer.

From this point on, it looked like the footballing gods may well be smiling on Stanley for a change and the 10 Reds left on the pitch had done more than enough to secure a place in the third round.

Well here is a question for you – if a player is clearly offside before he is alleged fouled in the box, is it a penalty?

Well, at first, the referee Craig Pawson seemed to shake his head as if to say no, but then he noticed his assistant, running the line in front of the main stand, who it appeared was in a better place to spot the infringement than he was even though he was a matter of yards away.

And so Barnet equalised from the penalty and we have to go down to Underhill for the replay a week today, and what glittering prize awaits us in the third round?

A home tie against Gillingham! Somebody somewhere is having a right laugh!