The Saturday Interview, this week with MICK DOCHERTY

MICK Docherty was just 11 years old when he got his first taste of a real life cup tie.

The venue: Wembley, the occasion: the FA Cup final, the teams: Tottenham Hotspur and Burnley.

That's when his love affair with football, the FA Cup and the Clarets first began - and it has never diminished.

Docherty couldn't have asked for a better stage to be introduced to the beautiful game.

And he believes that it was that day in May 1962 that he also felt a strong connection with Burnley Football Club, despite them being runners-up after losing 3-1 to Spurs.

"My dad had taken me to Wembley for the first cup tie I had ever been to, let alone first final," said Docherty, son of former Manchester United and Chelsea legend Tommy.

"Maybe that's what enamoured me to the game, and to the club itself because four years later I was an apprentice with Burnley.

"We had seats behind the Royal Box at the final so we were right on the halfway line, and I remember Jimmy Robson scoring an equaliser before Spurs went down the other end to score immediately afterwards.

"Now me and Jimmy work together on the backroom staff, so it's great for people like us, the club and the whole town to see the run that Burnley have had in the competition this year. And the possibilities are fantastic really."

Docherty was a full time professional with Burnley the last time they progressed beyond this stage of the FA Cup in the 1973/74 season.

They had just won promotion from the old Second Division before going on to earn a place in the semi-finals, where they were beaten 2-0 by Newcastle.

"It would certainly be nice if history could repeat itself, and hopefully go one better," he said.

"I didn't play in the semi-final myself because I'd started to have trouble with my knee.

"I had cruciate ligament damage which set me back a couple of years. Nowadays a player is only sidelined for about nine months, but it was a career threatening injury back then and, in the end, I was forced to retire from playing when I was just 29."

Docherty had missed that quarter-final showdown against Wrexham at Turf Moor, which they won 1-0 to set up the clash with Newcastle at the penultimate stage of the competition, but the 51-year-old maintains is the best in the world.

"Without a shadow of a doubt -- although I might be slightly biased because it's my home country.

"With the history it has and the dramas that have unfolded over the years, there's just nothing like it" he said.

Docherty isn't a man to get too far ahead of himself at the risk of fate being tempted, but he believes it's only right that Burnley have something to show for their efforts, not just in the FA Cup, but those remarkable performances in the Worthington Cup which have gone before.

"It would be justice if they could have some tangible reward having got this far" he said.

"They've beaten Tottenham in the Worthington Cup, come out with great credit against Manchester United, then beaten Fulham in the FA Cup. It just shows how far the club has come.

"That's down to the manager. Stan Ternent is Burnley through and through and has done a brilliant job at the club. He demands and gets 100 per cent, not just from the players, but all his staff.

"He keeps everyone on their toes and quite rightly so."

But while it's nice to dream -- if not essential when it comes to the FA Cup -- Docherty stressed the importance of not straying too far from reality.

"We're only in the sixth round yet," said the former Rochdale manager who is in his third stint at Turf Moor following a 10-year spell as a player.

"People are talking about the possibilities, which is nice, but we're trying to keep our feet on the ground.

"On the day, anything can happen. People start to see what I call a finishing line. Some players can handle it, some players can't and are afraid of winning.

"Having done so much already, we have to concentrate on beating Watford."

He added: "Further progress would be great for Stan because of what he has achieved at the club since he came back.

"It's a shame we no longer use Wembley. There was a lot of history encompassed in that stadium over the last 80 or 90 years.

"But it's nice to achieve that goal of getting to the final of a major competition."

Mick Docherty has seen numerous Cup Finals at Wembley, he lifted silverware with Burnley as a teenager when they won the Youth Cup in 1968.

He even witnessed Geoff Hurst scoring the hat-trick which clinched England's World Cup triumph at Wembley.

"I thought I was going to be the next Bobby Moore" he joked.

But I reckon he'd swop all that to see Burnley lift the FA Cup in May.