It’s FA Cup Second Round weekend for Chatham Town Women and Keith Boanas’ side head to Barnet to face old foes the London Bees and the boss is confident his side can progress.

The winners will go into the pot to possibly face a Championship side in Round Three with the WSL clubs potentially waiting in Round Four! 

The two sides met earlier in the season with the Chats running out 4-0 winners at the start of September, but the manager issued a warning to his players as we spoke ahead of the tie.

“They are a much different side to the one that came down with us last year,” Boanas admitted, “New manager, new staff, new players – in the first game I think we caught them as I think they may have come here almost overconfident. They have a young manager who is very progressive and very tactical minded who will do a lot of research.” 

“It’s a winnable game and we know that it is a winnable game, but they will believe that as well especially at their place; it’s not the nicest of places to go if it’s not on the main pitch.” 

“I want a Cup run to repay the faith that the Club has shown us – I put pressure on myself every game and Sunday will be no different; every three League points are as important as any prize money that we can bring into the Club.”

“I don’t like losing any game, even the five-a-side in training – I am competitive – it doesn’t matter the level of the game, but there is nine thousand pounds up for grabs on Sunday which when I go to the Club asking for things for the girls, it is so much easier if that money is already in there!” 

“It is easy to underestimate what the Chairman (Kevin Hake) puts into it financially – he’s been more than fair; his ethos is that this is a community Club and everyone is family – he says that you’re either part of the Chats family or you are not – I want every player and member of my staff to realise that.”

“He has my utmost respect and believe me when I say that I have worked with some good and bad Chairmen in my time – mostly good I’m pleased to say – and what I like about Kevin is that he is honest, forthright and says it how it is!”

“I will always regret that I could not keep my promise to him last year to keep the Club in the National League!” 

Last week, the Chats remained in contention in the League in third place with a 1-0 win over Cambridge at the Bauvill – a performance that the manager admitted was “ground out!”

He went on, “We certainly had the chances to bury the game. I don’t think that we ever looked threatened, but I just couldn’t believe the number of opportunities that we missed again, and not for the first time!”

“I was disappointed with our end product – first half was majorly disappointing in our passing ratios, but defensively we never looked in trouble or threatened and I thought that skipper Grace Coombs was head and tails player of the match for me – she led by example, she was everywhere, she covered ground, she got forward and was exemplary in leading the back line – one of the best games I have seen her play in a long, long time. She was immense…” 

“We get games like Sunday as I told the players – they are one of the “funny” sides who can be very good or the opposite. They drew with Real Bedford and Norwich so they are capable of performances; I was told that if we could get two or three you can beat them comfortably – we needed the second goal, but sadly it didn’t come!”

“Immensely pleased with the defensive unit on Sunday; not disappointed in the strikers work-rate and movement, but the end product needed a little bit more composure at times and a little bit more power – we keep working on finishing as I think we probably have the best front six in this League, but we have to start capitalising on that – it is one of those as I am convinced that sooner or later we are going smash somebody!” 

“One thing that I have to give the girls credit for is that they are building a unity between them with or without me and the staff.”

“They are building their own family ethos if you like and the attitude of the players who I am having to leave out has been part of the positivity for me – they are not visibly whinging and sulking!”

“I sent a long letter to everyone recently saying that the decisions are never personal – I have a two strikes and out rule, they know that!”

“If they have two bad games on the trot then I will change them for that reason, but at the moment if you are not playing, it’s not necessarily that you’ve had a bad game, it’s rotating to keep people involved because we can without hurting our performance as we have so many players of a similar level, perhaps slightly different styles, but then as we go on in the season and know who we are playing then it may well become more tactical and strategic as we know who we are playing.”

“At the moment, I am pretty chuffed and pretty proud of the way that the players are conducting themselves!” 

Kick off on Sunday at Barnet is at 1:00pm