The camera’s come to the Tarmac Silverlands Stadium as The Shrimps face up against Buxton.
The journey so far
Buxton started the Fa Cup journey away to Sherwood Colliery in the first qualifying round. The Bucks found themselves 2-0 up with goals through both Warren Clarke and Ash Chambers. However Sherwood fought back to score 2 quick goals and take it to a replay.
The replay was a different story however as The Bucks came up 5-1 winners with Diego De Girolamo grabbing 2 goals to start his tally in the cup! Chambers also grabbed another 2 and Dawson getting the first of the game to start a dominate performance!
They were then drawn against City Of Liverpool looking to get revenge from the Fa Trophy defeat last season to The Purps. And they did just that coming out convincing 6-1 winners. It what looked a tough game on paper goals from Dawson, Clarke, Hurst, Ward (2) and Elliott got Buxton through to the next round.
Kettering of the National league North was next up in what was to be the toughest test yet! And it look all but over for The Bucks as they were 2-1 down all the way up until the 90th minute of the game when Diego De Girolamo stepped up for his second of the game to fire his penalty to force Kettering into a replay.
1017 fans came to the replay to help boost the home side into the first round proper for the first time in 59 years! Kyle Perry gave the visitors the lead following a short corner routine. However Buxton got the leveller taking the game to extra time with Ben Milnes tapping home from Diego’s pass. The Bucks were spurred on by this getting a second through Diego just 6 minutes into extra time. He then killed the game off making it 3-1 to send the crowd onto eruption!
Buxton showed their talent once again in a great performance in the first round against another National league North side in York City. Diego De Girolamo’s strike in the 85th minute meant The Bucks progressed to the next round of the FA Cup and now face Morecambe.
Team news
Bucks will be without skipper Josh Granite after his red card against Lancaster couldn’t unfortunately get overturned.
My prediction is that Hurst will be the only change from the last round coming in as a straight swap for Granite.
The opposition
Morecambe sit 20th in League One in what has been a struggling season for the shrimps so far!
Last season the League One team beat Solihull Moors at this stage to book themselves a meeting with Chelsea in the third round, which they lost 4-0.
The away side got promoted from League 2 via the playoffs beating beating Newport 1-0.
Stephen Robinson took charge in the summer having previously been manager of Motherwell and having played at Both Bournemouth and Luton as a midfielder.
One to watch
Alfie McCalmont is a highly rated young midfielder on loan from Leeds. He broke into the first team at Leeds United for the first time in 2019/20. He earns himself a call up for the Northern Irish making his debut against Luxembourg. When on loan at Oldham he got 10 goals and 5 assists in 39 games.
What the manager had to say ?
Steve Cunningham: “The preparations are going really well we are working with a fantastic group of players who are all focused and the club has given us the very best preparation to get the result for us on Saturday”
“We will approach the game the same as any other game we have some fantastic players who have played in bigger games then this but we treat every game the same we have Scarborough a week on Tuesday and we will treat that the same as well but you can’t help be distracting when there is cameras around but we can’t let that detract from the opportunity and as long as we be professional we Cary on!”
“It’s been a great start to my time here and that’s because the dressing room have accepted us straight from the off and been really professional in their approach there’s a skill level there and a passion where we we want to take this football club.”
“We are playing a League One team they should beat us 10/10 but the FA Cup does throw up an opportunity for a team like us on our pitch on a cold normal day as it is in Buxton that Morecambe maybe taken back a bit we just need them to have a bit of an off day and we need to go above and beyond we have got confidence the team have shown on many occasions how good they can be.”