Kentish Football 
I beleive we will get to Wembley, says Herne Bay striker Byron Walker
The 25-year-old striker will miss the Semi-Final Second Leg at Darlington Road after picking up successive red-cards against Erith Town and VCD Athletic and his four-match suspension kicks in at a desperately wrong time.
West Auckland Town, a big, strong and physical outfit, who are in second place in the Northern League, raced into a 2-0 lead inside the opening eighteen minutes at Winch’s Field yesterday, stunning the home contingent in the 1,810 crowd.
But Walker latched onto Rhys Lawson’s flick in the 29th minute to power home a stunning left-footed strike from 16-yards to bring the Kent Hurlimann Football League leaders back to life - his 23rd goal of the season.
Lawson levelled six minutes into the second half after Dan Lawrence’s pass and the 23-year-old winger bent a low shot around visiting keeper Mark Bell and Herne Bay squandered chances to take a lead up to the North East next Saturday.
Walker insists Herne Bay can play better, even without his pace and goalscoring talents.
He said: “I think for me as a player playing in that game, I think that’s the best that they (West Auckland) can give looking at what we’ve done today, we’ve got so many gears to go up.
“It’s not the best performance that we’ve given and we can offer a lot more. We’ve had a couple of chances that being critical of myself and the other lads should’ve put ourselves ahead, give ourselves a massive boost for the away leg.
“But we’re training Tuesday and Thursday of next week. We’ve got a few sessions to work on a few things to rectify a few errors and we’re confident.”
Herne Bay have proved en-route to this nerve-jangling stage of a national Cup competition that they have the quality, pride and desire to dig themselves out of a hole.
An example of this was when Tom Parker (29 minutes) and Dave Soutan (43 seconds) were sent-off in their games against Larkall Athletic and Shortwood United in their last two rounds.
“You have to be in that dressing room to realise how much, the morale of the team, to recognise the management is behind us,” explained Walker.
“Herne Bay is not just about one person who makes the team. We’re very much a squad where everyone believes in each other. Everyone’s confident in everyone’s ability and we take that week in, week out onto the field.
“We’ve got that never die mentality and we use that to drive us through every game, whether we’re 2-0 down or 4-0 down. The belief is that the we believe we’ve got in that team we’ll come away with something.”
But not being able to influence the events during the second leg is what’s hurting Walker the most.
“Gutted would be an understatement as well. I’m sad to be missing the next leg of this Vase because I don’t feel I should be missing it for the fact this is a massive, massive opportunity to actually play at Wembley and not being able to feature in the next fixture of this tie, it’s out of my hands.
“As you’ve seen today we win games sometimes it’s me but within the team we’re able to pull our way back.
“I’ll be watching from the sidelines next week. I’m gutted and I can’t express the words how gutted I have to do that, but at the same time I look at the squad around me. I don’t think I’ll be that missed to be fair.
“There’s many players in this team who can come in and do a job.”
West Auckland’s players will spend the entire week regretting the fact that they threw away a 2-0 lead in Kent and Herne Bay hold the physiological advantage going into the make-or-break showdown at Darlington Road.
“We can only build in what we’ve done today, rectify our mistakes,” said Walker.
“If they believe that’s the best we’ve got then they’re in for a rude awakening!”
When he was asked what was going through his mind when West Auckland went 2-0 up, Walker replied, “What went through my mind? I was thinking I need to score! We need to score! If we get a goal before half-time we’ll get ourselves back in the tie.
“I believed we could come away with the win. We had the chances, which is frustrating because I’ve had a chance, DL (Dan Lawrence) had a chance in the game and effectively we should’ve come away from that game with a win.”
Walker revealed his prayers came true, saying, “I prayed the night before. I prayed on Saturday morning. I asked for some sunshine. I don’t’ like the cold so I prayed for some sunshine. I woke up in the morning and the sun was beaming. I had something to eat, I relaxed. I got to the ground.
“I looked and saw the hunger and desire in those (Herne Bay) players eyes. My gaffer (Simon Halsey) is the catalyst behind a lot of my confidence especially in that one-on-one. It’s very easy to miss that opportunity. Simon has given me confidence and such belief in my ability. This season I’ve been able to rack up quite a lot of goals and important goals as well.”
Walker wants his team-mates to send Herne Bay to a Wembley Final, which will see the Kent football family turn out in their thousands on Sunday 13 May.
“Ninety minutes away from Wembley – if selected!” said Walker.
“We never like to do things easier. Everyone will say the last two games we’ve played with ten men. We managed to keep a man on the field but we had to come back from 2-0 down!
“Next week all those demons that seem to be hanging over us will go away and we’ll pull out a performance.
“The support at Herne Bay is fantastic. I just like to thank the fans’ for coming out and supporting us, for being the 12th man if you like. I’d love some of the fans to make the trip up with us.
“I’ll be with the fans dancing around behind the goal and watching (Luke) Harvey score, Rhys (Lawson) score, DL (Dan Lawrence) score, (Michael) Jenner score.
“We’ve got such an amazing squad and I believe we will go down there and we will put on a performance and we will get to Wembley.”
Meanwhile, Dunston UTS go into their away leg at Staveley Miners Welfare with a narrow 1-0 lead.
Visit Herne Bay’s website: www.hernebayfc.net
West Auckland Town v Herne Bay
The FA Carlsberg Vase Semi-Final Second Leg
Saturday 31st March 2012
Kick Off 3:00pm
at Darlington Road, West Auckland, County Durham DL14 9HU
Red Dragon I.T. Ltd