The FA Cup is always a difficult competition, warns semi-finalist Paul McCarthy

Wednesday 22nd September 2010

EBBSFLEET UNITED assistant manager Paul McCarthy has a proud record when it comes to the FA Cup - and on Saturday he is aiming to inflict more misery upon Cray Wanderers, writes Stephen McCartney.

Cray Wanderers may be the second oldest football club in the world, now celebrating their 150th anniversary, but the club have never reached the first round proper of the FA Cup.

Born in Cork, McCarty began his career as a trainee with Brighton & Hove Albion, where he made over 200 league and cup appearances before joining Wycombe Wanderers for a fee of £100,000 in July 1996. He made over 250 appearances for Wycombe in seven seasons at the club, helping the club to a FA Cup semi-final tie against Liverpool in April 2001.

He scored Wycombe’s first goal in their quarter-final win over then Premier League side Leicester City, paving the way for Roy Essandoh (who later played for Ebbsfleet United) to score the winner.

And in May 2008, McCarthy lead Ebbsfleet United to FA Carlsberg Trophy glory at Wembley Stadium, as the Kent side defeated Torquay United courtesy of Chris McPhee’s goal.

“Well, the FA Cup is always a difficult competition and anything can be thrown up,” McCarthy told www.kentishfootball.co.uk before Cray Wanderers’ clinical 4-0 win at Tonbridge Angels last night.

“I was fortunate to go to the semi-finals with Wycombe and had some other good Cup runs at Brighton and whatever but it’s a terrific competition, maybe one that’s not respected as much by the top five or top five sides in the country at the moment but for clubs like Cray and ourselves, it’s a massive competition.”

Relegated after eight season’s in the top flight of non-league football, The Fleet are sitting in sixth place in the Blue Square Bet South table, with a record of four wins and three draws from their opening nine league games.

They arrive at Hayes Lane sitting just one division above the Wands, so McCarthy is wary of Ian Jenkins’ side producing a giant-killing on Saturday.

“We’re not going to get carried away, there’s no easy games in it,” warned McCarthy. “Any Cup competition can throw up results that aren’t expected so we’ll try and deal with Cray and hopefully get through to the next qualifying round.”

But Cray Wanderers - who were defeated 4-0 by the Fleet in the Kent Senior Cup Final at Hayes Lane after Daish led the Fleet to FA Trophy glory in July 2008 - have some history on their side - Ebbsfleet United’s record at Hayes Lane against their landlords Bromley is pretty dire.

“Thanks for reminding us,” replied McCarthy. “Yes, we know that pitch very well. We haven’t got the best of results there against Bromley, hopefully against Cray it will be a different matter.

“What am I expecting? A tough game! Hopefully we’ll bring a decent support and to be honest I’d like to say a performance and a win would be brilliant but a win is the main thing so that will be our focus to try and get through to the next round.”

McCarthy admitted it’s been tough on the management team at Stonebridge Road, as the club have reverted back to part-time status after five years as a full-time outfit.

“That’s been difficult, especially all our career’s being full-time,” explained the Irishman.

“It’s a different mentality, where it’s not the lads’ main income. You’re asking them to come training twice a week and then hopefully they’re going to look after themselves in the time in between.

“You can’t monitor players as much, whether injured players or players that are playing week in, week out for you, so it’s not a culture shock as such, it’s just realising you haven’t got total control over the players.

“The fellas might be working from nine-to-five in a job and coming in the evening, sometimes they perhaps might not be up to scratch but sometimes they’ve been working all day.

“We’re slowly adjusting to it but we’ve got a bunch of honest lads there and they’ve been very positive and the results lately have shown that.”

A hat-trick from French striker Laurent Hamici and a debut goal for Carl Gibbs stunned Tonbridge Angels at Longmead Stadium as the Wands stretched their unbeaten run to six games.

Hamici has now scored 10 goals already this season and is proving to be the find of the season for the Wands and confidence is high going into the game, following their second half destruction of their west Kent rivals last night.

But assistant manager Joe Francis, who was also speaking to www.kentishfootball.co.uk insists he is keeping his players focused ahead of the club’s biggest game of the season. Chairman Gary Hillman predicts a crowd of at least 600 at Hayes Lane on Saturday.

“You’ve got to keep your feet on the ground, every manager says it,” said Francis.

“We’ll train Thursday night, just be positive. Like I said to you sometimes its better to be playing a team that’s above you because you raise your game physiologically.

“We know that they’re a good, professional outfit and I know one or two players that are there. I know their manager is wholehearted and he wants hard work and passion from his players so we’re expecting a very, very hard game.”

Despite their impressive run of form at present, Cray Wanderers only climbed up to fourteenth place in the Ryman Premier League table following their win over Tommy Warrilow’s side last night.

The Wands have banked two wins and three draws from their seven league games to date and Francis added: “We’re unbeaten in six and we should be, we should have four more points and that would be really interesting because we played ever so well at Bury and Hastings and deserved to win both games - or could have won both games.

“Speaking to Tommy (Warrilow) before the game both of us said it’s early days and we’ve had a really good start. It doesn’t reflect that in the points that we’ve got but performances wise we’ve had one bad 90 minutes against Canvey Island on Saturday.

Could this be the year that the Wands get to the first round proper of the FA Cup - the closest they got was when they lost to then Conference side Grays Athletic in the fourth qualifying round five years ago?

Francis replied: “We’ve got to get past this round! We’ve had the team watched. We went to watch them Saturday. You’ve got to do your preparation. We expect a hard game.”

Admission prices for the game have been confirmed at £10 (adults) and £4 (under 16s and senior citizens). Programmes will be available for £2 each. Regular supporters are reminded that their season tickets do not cover Cup matches.

Visit Cray Wanderers’ website: www.craywands.co.uk

Visit Ebbsfleet United’s website: www.ebbsfleetunited.co.uk

Cray Wanderers v Ebbsfleet United

FA Cup (Sponsored by E.ON) Second Qualifying Round

Saturday 25th September 2010

Kick Off 3:00pm

At Hayes Lane, Bromley, Kent BR2 9EF