Nostalgia is a fine thing - but that which is being feted is often best kept in the past.

I was mindful of this when watching Eastleigh v Bolton in the 3rd Round of the FA Cup this weekend. Many media commentators have made mention of how the game felt like a throwback to third round ties of old. The romance of the cup. The minnows verses the giants. Kids with tin foil FA Cups in the crowd. And a mudbath of a pitch!

Firstly very well done to the Eastleigh groundstaff and team of volunteers for getting the pitch to a condition where it passed the third pitch inspection in order to get the match played. Weeks of heavy rain at the Silverlake Stadium had left the surface looking somewhat like a cow field rather than a field of dreams. And more rain on the day didn't help - leading to scenes of much forking and leaf blowers being used to dry the surface.

That old cliche about the pitch being a great leveller certainly came into play, with for large swathes of the game, the neutral observer being unable to tell who plied their trade in the Championship and who was the non-league side.

In fact it could be argued that in the end it was Eastleigh who came off worst from the pitch as when they were still 1-0 up Andy Drury’s 66th-minute shot seemed to be heading goal-ward for a insurmountable 2-0 lead, before getting stuck in the heavy mud in the six-yard box, allowing Bolton's David Wheater to clear.

In the end a draw probably suited both teams financially as it would seem the logical decision for the BBC to choose the reply as the live televised game.

But in all this nostalgia, we don't want the myth being spread that a quagmire of a pitch helped add to the romantic excitement of the game. Headlines such as The Magic Of The Cup are one thing, but football groundsmanship has made such great strides at all levels of the game, we shouldn't allow commentators to get carried away in thinking a retro-pitch like this somehow recreates a mythical 'halcyon days of old' atmosphere.

Yes, it's brilliant that groundstaff and volunteers got the game on, but it's nothing but really unfortunate that the pitch had a negative influence on the outcome of the game.

In the cold light of day, should we be asking if the game really should have been given permission to go ahead in the first place?