Dartford 0-1 Hampton & Richmond Borough

FA CUP day was played out under a clear blue sky at Princes Park on Saturday with Tony Burman adding Jamie Day to the 16 who won convincingly at Maidstone in midweek.

Attacking the Academy End, Darts forced a brace of early corners and even this early Lee Noble was receiving close attention.

Hampton countered with a wide free-kick which Andrew Young handled effortlessly.

Then a Darts' counter saw Steve Butterworth set Noble free and his shot was parried by visiting keeper Lovett at the second attempt.

Again Hampton came back and won a corner on the left, which was dealt with by Young.

By now it was end-to-end stuff with Butterworth and Noble setting the Blue Square visitors problems, backed up by Ryan Hayes' crosses and free-kicks.

The whole nature of the game altered on 25 minutes when Noble was cruelly brought down in full flight by Hampton skipper Dean Wells in what is euphemistically known as denying a goal-scoring opportunity.

Wells was sent from the field of play and immediately Darts scored a fine goal, only for it to be ruled out for a Dartford being "actively involved".

More often than not, this sort of situation is a double-edged sword, with the scales weighted in favour of the offenders.

Typically, a rare Hampton moment saw Darts fail to deal properly with a ball in their right corner and Wright squeezed in a cross which Barrie Matthews nodded home.

The second half was basically one-way traffic but faced with a massed defence, Darts were unable to create but few opportunities.

Darts mixed wide play with thrusts through the middle and, again, had a goal disallowed.

Late on the lanky Wright found himself in a one-on-one with Young, but the Darts' goalie out-psyched him.

Late substitutions saw James White on for Osborne and Adam Flanagan for Hayes, but it couldn't inspire an equaliser and Dartford's FA Cup dream was ended for another year.

The home league game with Margate will now take place on October 11.

Dartford: Young, Coyle, Osborne (White 85), Powell, Guest, Dafter, Butterworth, Hayes (Flanagan 88), Cass, Haworth, Noble. Subs not used: Barnes, Norman, Day, Kessell. Att: 1047.