AREN’T draws brilliant? I’d happily sit in front of the telly and watch one every night.

Monday night’s FA Cup first-round draw on BBC was compelling viewing and comedy gold in my household.

Dean Saunders poised, smile fixed, fingertips dangling eagerly over the bowl of balls while he waited patiently for the presenter to finish the latest inane fact about the previously drawn team – what’s not to like?

The games themselves were largely uninspiring, but that’s not the point of a cup draw.

You are basically watching football fixtures being made, but it is more than that. So much more.

A cup draw is an event, an occasion, an entertainment. It is something to look forward to and enjoy and very often more exciting than the games they throw up.

Fans grew to love cup draws a long time ago, back in the day when a Bob Wilson used to give a brief introduction and a grumpy-looking FA chief executive Graham Kelly used to get on with it.

Then the television companies latched on to the fact there was an appetite for these occasions they could exploit. And, low and behold, the evolution of the draw has resulted in half-hour shows being devoted to them.

Telephone calls go out to clubs who have already gone further than they could ever imagine in the competition to get their players down to the ground for 7pm where film crews are waiting to ask them to imagine if they could go further still.

Fans are gathered into the studio – club colours donned – to ask who they would like in the next round before moving on to the compulsory question to a non-league chairman which inevitably ends in the answer "Manchester United away".

Supporters watching back home on the telly understand why television companies exploit cup draws in this way, but they don’t necessarily like it.

Bring back the old days, some cry as they long for the no-nonsense glory days of Wilson, Kelly and Bert Millichip.

We only want to see the jumping balls being pulled out of the bowl. Get on with it!

And then that moment arrives when the show’s presenter passes over to the draw presenter (this is a two-presenter occasion) to introduce the two former footballers who are going to perform the act we have all been waiting for.

The magic of the cup draw is about to begin and the first shot of adrenaline rushes through supporters' bodies sitting back home.

Who are we going to get? The feeling is equal in anticipation value to when a referee blows his whistle to start a game.

Just like every time a winger crosses a ball into the box and you wonder if you are going to score, every time one of the ball puller-outers puts his hand into the bowl you wonder if it is going to be your team.

And then it is. And you get Scunthorpe away.

Still, never mind. More chance of bringing them back to our place and seeing them off and getting into the next round when who knows who we might get.

You never know, might be Manchester United away.