. Of course we HAVE been here before haven't we? November 2005 when the part timers from the quintessentially northern spa town came to Plainmoor and got a 1-1 draw. I was at the replay that night at Wetherby Road where we were fortunate and sneaked through on pens. So it's the FA Cup and against a team who have nearly left us with strawberry blancmonge on our faces once before so we cannot underestimate them. That said, they are s*it, they are part timers, they are non leaguers and they are from Harrogate so we SHOULD be punishing them at home anyway.Our opponents currently sit in 13th place in the Conference North on 15 points from 10 games and are 16 points off leaders Chester FC although they do have 2 games in hand. They are fairly tight at the back but we should be able to break them down with a scintillating attacking display. I sincerely hope we get at them from the off because teams like Harrogate of limited ability and playing a league side are going to dig in and battle hard and if we start this game lethargically we could be in for an upset. No doubts in my mind. We know they are going to come and compete and if we slack off we are going to be in trouble, conference north or not. To be honest i'd rather be playing Hyde because at least they have quite a few ex league players that we know something about about. Apart from former Derby midfielder Adam Bolder who played in the premier league, defenders Dave Merris ex-York and Matt Bloomer ex-Lincoln amongst other clubs they are unknowns. Just a note but anyone remember that annoying time wasting tosser Macc keeper Jose Veiga? Well he was released by Macc in the summer and signed up for Harrogate and up until their last three games he had been playing for them but i don't know what has happened to him. The Harrogate website doesn't include him in their player pages anymore. Weird.
Anyway, a brief and uneventful thread this week but rest assured, any replay up in Harrogate will recieve my utmost attention!!! Can't be arsed to do a Harrogate line up last time out as most of them you won't have heard of but the last game they played before knocking out Hyde was Hyde in the first game as their game against Corby the following weekend was called off.
I'm going for a 2-0 scoreline to us with Rene and Manse netting for us. A desperately small crowd looks likely too now that Torquay have confirmed it will be full price on the day.
The ref for this one is Mr Wayne Barratt, his glamourous assistants Mr William Bull and Mr Mark Derrien and the 4th official is Mr Andrew Bennett.
