Steve Watkin, now playing for Swansea City (ChrisLobina/Allsport)

Second in the Premiership against 24th in the Third Division. To those Arsenal supporters who believe in fate, the symmetry with North Wales in 1992 is frightening.

Then Tony Adams led Arsenal, reigning champions and second in the old Division One at the time, to Wrexham who had finished - yes, you guessed it - 92nd in the Football League the previous season.

The match is etched in the memory of all those who witnessed it. Arsenal, 1-0 up courtesy of Alan Smith a minute before half-time, conceded a free-kick in the 82nd-minute.

Up stepped 37- year-old Mickey Thomas, the pocket firebrand once of Manchester United fame, to lash a 25-yard free-kick past the statuesque David Seaman. Two minutes later, Steve Watkin, a scrawny 20 -year-old in his first season of league football with his hometown club, surged into the Arsenal area to sweep home the winner.

Cue the final whistle, Thomas and Watkin carried shoulder-high by jubilant Wrexham fans while Arsenal slunk back to the dressing room in disgrace.

'It's nine years ago now, but people still want to talk to me about it. It was a very special day,' Watkin told Soccernet. 'It passed me by very quickly because I was a young lad and I'd only just broken into the first team.

'Nobody expected us to win. Even the players thought we had no chance. It was just a case of trying to enjoy the game.

'In the first half Arsenal were well on top and should have been at least 3-0 up. But they eased off in the second half and let us back into the game.

'I was up against Tony Adams and David O'Leary and I didn't get much change out of them. They were so strong and composed. I didn't get a sniff for the whole of the first half.

'When I went through on goal, it all happened that quickly I didn't have time to think of the implications of scoring. If I had, I might have made a mess of it.

'From then to the final whistle was the longest 10 minutes or so of my life. We didn't really get a chance to speak to the Arsenal players at the end because of all our fans coming on to the pitch to mob us.'

The trouble with fairy-tales, of course, is that a brush with reality often soils them.

Thomas ended up in prison for attempting to pass on forged banknotes to his teammates, and while Watkin went on to to further cup glory with Wrexham, most notably in reaching the quarter-finals in 1997, he has since moved on to Swansea.

Now 29, he is involved in a relegation scrap to keep Swansea in Division Two which tomorrow means a visit to Wigan while the FA Cup goes on elsewhere.

He offers only one piece of advice, if little hope, for the Carlisle players.

'They need a good start, to keep it at 0-0 for as long as possible.

'If they can, they might get a bit more confident and perhaps nick a goal, ' added Watkin, whose FA Cup exploits have included two victories over West Ham, one each with Wrexham and Swansea.

'On each occasion we played above ourselves while the big team had an off day. That's what Carlisle have to hope happens tomorrow.

'But I'm sure Arsenal will be very professional and I just can't see them slipping up. The gap has definitely widened in the last nine years since we beat Arsenal. <psets are becoming less frequent.

'If that Wrexham team I was in was playing this Arsenal team, I'm sure we'd have problems.