Darlington (H) 9th Nov, 3pm. F.A.Cup 1st round

"Round a Quaker’s Beaver cast a glory"

(Pope)

It’s that time of the year again - the 1st round proper of the “proper” Cup competition, when the prospect of minnows facing giants looms large … and this year the upsets could start as early as the 1st round, with the biggest potential upset being a Walsall home win against Alun Armstrong’s Darlington side!!

Darlington (one of 8 ex-Football League sides in the 6th tier) are currently mid-table, but only a point away from the play-off zone. Their current form looks like this:-

Sep 28 Alfreton Town (A) Won 1-2
Oct 5 Leamington (A) Won 0-2 F.A.Cup 3rd qualifying round
Oct 12 Boston United (H) Won 2-1
Oct 19 Tamworth (A) Won 0-3 F.A.Cup 4th qualifying round
Oct 30 Kidderminster Harriers (H) Won 1-0
Nov 2 Hereford United (H) Drew 0-0

The only playing “connection” takes the form of Mark Prudhoe, who older members will recall as our goalkeeper in the 1970’s - he was on Darlington’s books a few years later, and was voted as a member of their all-time star team by a Quakers’ supporters group.

So, what can we expect from Darrell Clarke’s squad? As always, the answer has to be “Who knows?”. There have been consistent reports that we have played well, didn’t deserve to lose etc. etc., but the plain fact is that we DO continue to lose, and a contributory factor seems to be the chopping and changing (not to mention playing men out of position). Basic defensive errors continue to be made because to the outside observer it would appear that players don’t have a real idea as to who should be doing what, and where…

Injuries have played their part, of course, but by the same token we do seem to have some players who attract injuries like a magnet attracts metal. A further unknown factor for this game is the question of whether any (or all) of our loan players will even be released by their parent clubs to play in this competition. All will be revealed on Saturday.

Prediction? With quite a few thousand quid resting on progression to the 2nd round (and beyond?) let’s go for a narrow home win - we obviously don’t have the ammunition to make it a decisive win, but a scoreline of 2-1 will suffice, with goals from Sinclair and Clarke.

UTS

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Honest with our season atm, I can see us being that “Cup shock”

Mind says 2-1 Darlington
Heart says 3-0 Walsall

huge huge game tho in so many regards

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We simply have to win and we will!!!

Don’t forget, we’ve got home disadvantage! :crazy_face:

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Our recent FA Cup record against lower league opposition is pants. Macclesfield & Newport County springing to mind.

Darlington look prime for a run to the 3rd round. Plenty of momentum for them, and literally non for us.

But hopefully a couple of our barn door evaders will remember what the net held up by the posts is for.

We’ve got this

Would it be much of an upset considering 3/4 of our squad should be playing at Darlingtons level?

A must win game for lots of different reasons. For Clarke’s sake, the additional cash boost for January and the overall confidence of the squad.

There can be no messing around with the squad now, as many others have pointed out we need to at least try and field as consistent XI as possible.

The team he puts out on Saturday should be a blueprint for the season moving forward.

Rose

Facey

Clarke
Scarr
Jules

Pring

Bates
Sinclair

MacDonald
Adebayo
Gordon

Let’s get after them.

Not much of an upset at all , same as if Sunderland beat Southampton or Watford in the 3rd round , almost expected

Agree with you mate no ■■■■■ footing around a couple of early goals and put the game to bed would be nice just got the feeling it’s not gonna be as straight forward though

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The preview does say that a Walsall win would be the upset … :wink:

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Another loss for me :pensive: Darlington have a winning non league team and a winning mentality, we have a losing league team with none league quality and a losing mentality.

Don’t forget though that our last 3 goals have been scored by Flash, Ayli, and Daphne - the forwards are on a hot streak at the moment! :soccer:

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The most bang on line in any post I have read on UTS this season!

Are we supposed to have forwards? Or are these guys WE call forwards just a ‘smokescreen’ (a bit like not telling anyone, including our long suffering fans, about our nightmare injury list) to divert our opposition into believing that our short term 13 negative goal difference is just an early season ploy, getting them to think we are crap at attacking…as if… .then, when we are 3-0 down (again) hit them with a great consolation ‘off the bum’ OG in the 93rd minute?..Result!!! Oh no, bugga we lost again didn’t we?

A Quakers Beaver eh? Sounds interesting

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Sounds almost misplaced on this type of forum :thinking:

Probably protected :grin:

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Just had a look back through the results, and our last home league goal from open play was Lavery on the 29th August against Grimsby.

That is horrendous.

All 3 at Crawley were from open play.

I did say ‘home’ to be fair.