Is the third round beckoning?

We have had a week basking in the glory of beating the bogey that was Walsall, and now we turn our attention to another rarity in recent years, a place in the third round of the FA Cup.

Tonight we host Salisbury City in the second round, and although they will be much stronger opposition than Shortwood, we must be favourites to beat them. As long as we approach it right then we should do, but the club have had enough warnings over the last 13 seasons. In that time we have been at home to Grimsby Town, Chasetown, Ford United, Scarborough and Canvey Island, all non-league teams who left Vale Park undefeated.

On the other side of the coin we are now better than we were going into any of those games so it’s about time that status will prevail. The third round draw is a great occasion and one we have missed too often of late. The winners of tonight’s tie will be number 47 in the draw on Sunday afternoon and without counting any chickens it is hard not to look ahead to it.

Should it all go right tonight I would love to draw Chelsea, home or away. The reason being they are the only team in the four divisions that we haven’t played since the late 1980’s so would complete the set for a lot of fans.

Phil Sherwin