It's crunch time!

The moment Winchester fans have been waiting for has arrived. For the first time in its 120-year history, the city's football team is packing its boots and heading for a national final.

On Sunday, the players will carry the hopes of the whole of Winchester and beyond as Winchester City FC take on AFC Sudbury in the FA Vase final in Birmingham.

And one of the 3,000 fans cheering from the stands will be milkman, Doug Taylor, who has gone to extraordinarily lengths to support the team.

The 59-year-old father of three, who also edits the club's match programmes, regularly starts his round early so he has time to drive to matches and has even stayed up allnight to make sure he doesn't miss a game.

A lifelong football fan, Doug, a milk roundsman in New Milton for 16 years, said making sure people always received their pintas and getting to the club's Abbott's Barton ground, or to away games, could sometimes be difficult.

"The games start at 3pm and my round finishes at noon. I go without sleep sometimes as I start quite early in the morning and I have to go straight to the games. I get really tired."

When the team played Banstead Athletic FC last year, one of Doug's early-morning starts nearly ended in disaster. He had just loaded the float and made a cuppa when there was a noise. "I heard the wheels of the float going out through the gates. Someone had stolen it."

Doug phoned the Hordle depot to report the missing float and spent an hour-and-a-half scouring the streets. "I was in a cold sweat. The van was missing. I thought all the milk had been stolen."

Fortunately, Doug found the float abandoned but intact, with nothing amiss. "I think someone saw it and just decided to have a joyride," he said.

In spite of that episode, Doug still managed to get to the game.

He says he can't wait for Sunday's match. "In the last couple of years, we have not had that much support at all, but all of a sudden it's come alive.

"Hopefully, I think we'll win 2-0," says Doug optimistically. "But then I've never seen the other side."