Deal Town boss Derek Hares expects tight FA Cup clash against rivals Hythe

Thursday 26th August 2010

DEAL TOWN boss Derek Hares hopes home advantage will see them through their FA Cup Preliminary Round tie against Safety Net Associates Kent League title favourites Hythe Town on Saturday, writes Stephen McCartney.

Deal welcome Scott Porter’s side to The Charles Sports Ground sitting in second place in the table with single goal wins over Lordswood and Greenwich Borough and progressed through to this round with a 3-0 home win over Sandhurst Town.

“Yes, it’s gone pretty well to be fair. I mean three games, three wins, so I can’t complain,” Hares told www.kentishfootball.co.uk.

“I think we’ve defiantly improved the squad from last year. I’ve got more strength-in-depth so with that you get more competition for places and everyone’s raised their game because of that.

“To be honest, in the past, I probably had 12 or 13 players who were good enough to play in the Kent League and maybe four or five who weren’t really quite good enough, so when we had injuries we were struggling a little bit, but I’ve got a stronger bench this year.

“I’m not getting carried away. We’ve got two very tough games coming up, Hythe on Saturday and Herne Bay next Wednesday so they don’t come any tougher than that in this league anyway.”

Hythe suffered a surprise opening day defeat away to VCD Athletic - who currently lead the table - before bouncing back with a 4-0 home win over Bookham in the FA Cup - and Corinthian were beaten thanks to a seventh minute header from striker Brendon Cass last weekend.

Hares said: “To be honest I think their probably most people’s favourites to win the Kent League this year, but it doesn’t always go like that does it?

“It’s always a tight game between us and Hythe and I don’t expect anything different on Saturday to be honest.”

With a home tie against Epsom & Ewell or Flackwell Heath awaiting the winners in the First Qualifying Round on 11 September, Hares is looking at an extended run in the competition, if they can get through Hythe, who took Blue Square Bet South side Woking to two games in the second qualifying round last season, after beating Whitehawk, Eastbourne Town and Faversham Town.

Speaking about the magic of the FA Cup, Hares said: “It means a lot to everybody. It gives you that little bit more excitement and for the club, because of the prize money involved, it’s a very important competition.

“Hopefully we get a good gate on Saturday as well. Hythe are favourites but we’ve started off with three wins so hopefully that might help to attract a lot of interest.

“The FA Cup is something different, people like to see you progress in it and the further you go the more chance you’ve got to bring a bigger team to the club.

“This game will create interest anyway because of how the Kent League is the teams now are in the London area so this is a local derby for us really.

“There’s always been a turnover of players between Deal and Hythe. We’ve got Mo Takaloo, who was at Hythe, Jason Brazier, although he probably won’t be involved on Saturday, Roy Godden, so we’ve got a few, but they’ve not got so many now, they’ve obviously changed their side quite a lot over the last couple of season’s.”

But the Deal boss warned: “To be honest, I think at home we’ve been pretty strong over the last eighteen months. I don’t think Hythe will look forward to playing us at Deal. Their favourites but that goes out of the window.

But being the furthest away club does have it’s advantages - and disadvantages for the Deal Town boss.

He said: “That is one of our major problems for us at the moment. We have to travel a lot further than anybody else in the league over the course of a season. Now, if you take Hythe and Herne Bay out of the equation, our nearest game is at Chatham against Lordswood.

“If you haven’t got the local talent - we have got some local talent - but we haven’t got enough but we do have to go out of the town and it makes it difficult. I do feel that we’ve got a decent squad this year and we will be very competitive. I’m not going to say we’re going to win the league or anything like that but we’ll certainly finish nearer the top than the bottom.”

If they avoid a draw in the Cup on Saturday, Hares takes his side to Herne Bay for a Kent League fixture next Wednesday.

“We couldn’t have two tougher games in four days really and after that I think we’ll know exactly where we are,” said Hares.

“We’re going into both games confident. I know that we’ll give them both good games. We need a little bit of luck go either way or whatever and people are probably expecting us to lose so we’ve got a lot to gain really and nothing to lose.”

Shane Suter (holiday), skipper Adam Govey (ankle), Danny Smith (hamstring) have been ruled out.

Hythe Town boss Scott Porter was unavailable to comment - please phone me when you have a mobile phone signal….!

Visit Deal Town’s website: www.dealtownfc.co.uk

Deal Town v Hythe Town

FA Cup (Sponsored by E.ON) Preliminary Round

Saturday 28th August 2010

Kick Off 3:00pm

At The Charles Sports Ground, St Leonards Road, Deal, Kent CT14 9BE