The Harriers continue their quest for FA Cup glory on the road tomorrow with a long trip up to Lancaster for the 3rd round qualifying tie. Incredibly if we get through this then we'll be playing a 4th round qualifying game too. With £7,500 at stake tomorrow and a further £12,500 for the winners of the next stage then the carrot is dangling at the very end of our stick.This will be the first time that we have met up with each other and that's mainly due to the difference in levels played at over the years with City in the Northern Premier League after spending some enforced time in Division One of the North West Counties League when financial difficulties led them to fold and reform. So they play at one level below us whereas this is our first time in over thirty years at our current level but on the day that doesn't matter in the slightest.
As we saw last week at Alfreton it's no use going to other teams thinking that we just need to turn up and the goals will flow. At Alfreton they flowed the wrong way three times before we woke up and pulled ourselves together. We don't want to be going up there tomorrow in that frame of mind.
In recent weeks Lancaster have been on a good run and are un-defeated in the last six games with a 3-0 away win in their first cup game at Brighouse followed up with a 2-1 home win against Darlington in the last round. On Tuesday they came away from Trafford (another wannabee Manchester Utd clone along with FC Utd and Salford) with a 4-1 win under their belts so they're not to be taken lightly.
They have no well known names in their ranks but those they have are still useful but young and have got them up to fourth place in the table. They will have an almost fully fit squad for the game with just a few problems with Ricky Mercer (foot) and Rob Henry(groin strain).
Up until Tuesday evening we had no injuries either but following a 'friendly' at Stourport Swifts Liam Truslove (right) was subbed off with an ice pack strapped to his knee while towards the end of the 4-2 win Sam Austin also went off following lengthy treatment on the pitch. Hopefully they'll both be ok for the trip to Lancaster.
In the previous round of the cup we easily saw off Tamworth 4-0 and no doubt we'll be hoping for more of the same tomorrow but don't bank on it. Lancaster are going to give us more of a game than the slaughtered lambs ever did.
Photo © KHFC
Teams:
Harriers from:
Hornby, J Brown, T Palmer, Hodgkiss, Lowe, Williams, Carter, Thomas, Tunnicliffe, Clarke, Francis-Angol, Croasdale, Stambolziev, Gnahoua, Truslove, Austin, A Brown, McQuilkin, Sweeney, N'Gwatala, Dieseruvwe, Waite, Taylor.
Lancaster City from:
Raybould, Rodgerson, Hale, Anderson, Westwood, Davis, Gregory, Hudson, Mercer, Crolla, Wills, Carney, Akrigg, G Clark, C Clark, Shearwood, Connerton, Mayers, Waters, Cummings, McKenna, Robinson, Russell, Watson.
Talk about the game here
Links to Lancaster City websites here
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