Gary Mabbutt takes us behind the scenes of the FA Cup fourth round draw

The nation’s football fans - let alone Spurs fans - were watching in their millions as our legendary former skipper Gary Mabbutt helped conduct the draw for the fourth round of the FA Cup live on ITV1 on Monday evening.

‘Mabbsy’, who lifted the trophy as captain in our FA Cup win of 1991, was joined by Arsenal and Republic of Ireland legend, goalkeeper Emma Byrne, for the draw, hosted by Seema Jaswal.

And we know the outcome - Emma drew out our number seven ball for a home draw, only for Mabbsy to then select ball 21 - holders Manchester City!

Ever wondered what happens behind the scenes at the FA Cup draw? Mabbsy, second in our all-time list on 611 appearances in all competitions, captain for 11 years, talks us through his day – which started at the stadium!

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— Emirates FA Cup (@EmiratesFACup) January 8, 2024

Mabbsy told us: "I was actually contacted a couple of weeks ago through the Club, asking if I’d do the draw, so I said ‘yes’ straight away. However, I also had two Legends Tours at the stadium on Monday, so I was at the stadium at nine o’clock in the morning, did the two tours, they finished at 4.30pm, and there was a car waiting outside to take me to ITV studios, based near Ealing.

“When you arrive at the studio, you are introduced to Seema and Emma Byrne, who was doing the draw with me. You go into a Green Room, and then the whole crew come in and it’s an in-depth, half-hour meeting going through everything, health and safety, all the issues like if you drop a ball, or if you put a ball in the wrong place, or if something goes wrong pouring the balls into the pot! They said that’s where it can all go wrong, especially live! You know you have to get it right because the Wigan-Manchester United tie was starting straight after the draw. All of a sudden, the pressure’s on!

“I joked with them, ‘Emma has about 29 titles as a goalkeeper, has the safest hands in the studio, yet you’re asking me to tip the balls in!' They then said that Emma would be drawing the home teams, I’d be drawing the away teams. You’re in the studio for about an hour and a half. Then it’s make-up! You’re quite pampered, to be honest! Then it’s a rehearsal, and it’s a full, complete rehearsal. From the opening titles, the intros, the interview at the start, putting the balls into the pot, drawing them out. Everything is done, start to finish, all done as an ‘as live’ rehearsal. In the live rehearsal, Emma pulled out Tottenham Hotspur, I pulled out Birmingham City."

“You finish the rehearsal, go back into the Green Room, have a cup of tea, then it’s back into the studio for the live show. I asked to them, ‘should we be really serious?’ so I said a couple of quips, I remember saying, ‘this is where it could all go wrong’ as I tipped the balls in. It was pretty intense, to be fair! There must be over 20 people in there.

“So, Emma picked Tottenham out, I picked the next ball out, and it’s Manchester City! I had no idea what team number 21 was. As it happened, I just said, ‘to be the best, you have to beat the best’. To be honest, I’m delighted with the draw because, with all due respect, City have played here five times, they’ve not won, not scored a goal and we get to play in our stadium, with our crowd behind us. I always love the big games. The bigger the game, the better. For me, it’s a fantastic draw. Within 10 minutes of doing the draw, my phone was going mad. People saying, ‘what have you done, Mabbsy?’ and I was just thinking, ‘it’s the best draw possible!’. Overall, it was great fun. I’m sure Spurs fans were watching the draw, but that’s everything that happened - and the balls didn’t go bouncing all over the studio!”