The closer you get to that first round the better it becomes, says Margate joint-boss Simon Osborn

DULWICH HAMLET boss Gavin Rose says their midweek 2-0 win over Margate could spur their opponents on in The FA Cup tie between the two clubs tomorrow.



The Hamlet climbed into fifth-place in the Ryman Premier League after Kevin James and Ian Daly converted the team’s only two chances on target during the game at Champion Hill.

Dulwich Hamlet travel down to Hartsdown Park tomorrow to contest a Second Qualifying Round tie with the winners banking £4,500 in prize money.

Dulwich Hamlet last reached the first round in 1998 when under manager Dave Garland they went down to a 1-0 home defeat to Southport.

The last time that Margate reached that stage of the competition was in 2002 when under Chris Kinnear they defeated Leyton Orient in a replay at Hartsdown Park before going down to a 3-0 home defeat to Cardiff City in the second round.

Rose said: “It’s a one-off game. The mentality of the Margate dressing room, you expect them to work hard and make it difficult for us.  I expect the same from us as well. 

“We can play better and they arguably can say they can play better as well so the two teams know each other a litlte bit more so there’s not so much to learn about each other.

“It’s a FA Cup game. There’s money at the end of it for both teams.”

Reflecting on the prize money up for grabs, Rose added: “At this level if anyone would give you four and a half grand any club would take it!  It’s a good carrot. It’s good for stability for clubs to give them a chance to budget a litlte further in the season.

Rose insists his side does not hold the phsyoligocial advantage over Margate following their midweek win.

“I wouldn’t think so,” he said.  “Teams win and lose games every week.  They don’t turn up and just expect to lose the next game because they’ve lost the one before so I wouldn’t think there would be any phsyoligocial damage for them.

“They’re experienced boys, they’ve won a lot of games in their career and lost a lot of games.

“It probably gives them a bit of a spur on, to be honest, to go on and do well.”

Margate joint-manager Simon Osborn insists it’s important for his club to get past their league rivals.

The Blues slipped down to ninth-place in the table with 18 points from 11 games following their defeat on Tuesday night.

Osborn said: “It was quite open at times without really being any goal mouth action.  I thought they defended our set-pieces well. We had a couple of half chances from set-pieces but we didn’t really capitalise on that.”

Attention now turns to tomorrow’s FA Cup tie at Hartsdown Park and the former Crystal Palace midfielder wants his side to take advantage of being at home and scoop the prize money.

“The FA Cup is massive for club’s at this level so we’ll be looking to do what we can,” said Osborn.

“We’ll go into it. It’s a one-off cup tie. We had a good result in the last round against Kingstonian and that’s all forgotten so we’ll go out there to try and win the game and try to progress to the third qualifying round.”

Margate picked up £3,000 following their victory over present league leaders Kingstonian in the last round so another £4,500 would please the chairman.

Osborn added: “It’s a massive thing for the club, for the players as well to be invovled in.

“I’ve been fortunate to play most of the rounds.   I think it’s a special tournament. Again, it’s a money spinner for the club and it’s also an opportunity to get yourselves further in it and the closer you get to that first round, the better it becomes because you never know who you might get out of the hat.

“I was fortunate at Bromley to get to the first round and play (my old club) Gillingham and they’ve had a couple of good draws in the last few years’.

“It we can win on Saturday and progress, we can see how far we can take ourselves.”

Visit Margate’s website: www.margate-fc.com

Visit Dulwich Hamlet’s website: www.pitchero.com/clubs/dulwichhamlet

Margate  v  Dulwich Hamlet
The FA Cup with Budweiser Second Qualifying Round
Saturday 28th September 2013
Kick Off 3:00pm
at Hartsdown Park, Hartsdown Road, Margate, Kent CT9 5QZ