The magic of the FA Cup will be shining on the “More than Tyres” Stadium in Burgess Hill this weekend, as Simon Halsey and his Hollands & Blair side head for the Sussex coast looking to add their own little bit of FA Cup giant killing.

Halsey’s SCEFL side head south for the tie on the back of an impressive win on midweek against Crowborough, and with an upset well and truly top of the Gillingham sides agenda.

Speaking to KSN, the boss told us, “I’m over the moon that we won 2-0 on Wednesday night, the whole display of the team even before we went down to ten men, I just thought that we had something about us.”

“It’s given us massive confidence to take into Saturday, to have what they call the “mojo” and the belief with the winning mental strength that they showed in midweek is great.

“We touched on it before the game and they certainly had it and we must now continue with that, but I know that Saturday really is going to be a tough game for us although it will be their first competitive game since Lockdown this season whilst it’ll be our third one.

“We’ve got to have a belief that we can go there and… can we win it? It’ll certainly be very tough, but if we set our stall out right, do things individually that myself and Luke (Harvey, the Blair assistant boss) are going of ask of them and they do it individually, collectively who knows what could happen as a team.”

“Those outside the club just won’t realise how big the game is for us as a little club. We took I think it was £1,300 from the last round (win at Colliers Wood) plus half the gate so there was a bit of money in the bank, and we need to do that for the club as they do everything they possibly can for myself and the players supplying us for whatever we really ask for.

“Saturday is a game where we have to put a performance on to get some money back into the club to replace the money that we’ve lost through COVID. We owe that to the club now to go and put some money back in the bank and hopefully get Hollands & Blair in the next round which would be great.”

“Anyone who thinks that we are what we were two or three years ago, a team that was languishing in the bottom three or four of the League will be mistaken as we are a completely different club now.”

“We’ll have a full squad to choose from, we’ll have a new keeper after Adam Highsted’s concussion in the week. Chris Saunders didn’t get into Wednesday’s squad as he had a bit of a pull after Saturday, and I rested Matt Gething after he worked his absolute socks off in the first two games.

“So, with the big squad, I’ve got I rested him ready for another week of Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday. The lads are disappointed when they’re not in the squad but as a manager and the size and quality of the squad I’ve got, I have to make decisions and Wednesday worked for me and I think I picked the right sixteen.”

“Anyone who thinks we’re easy targets will be very mistaken, hopefully Burgess Hill may have had a watched in the two games they could have looked at us so hopefully they’ll have showed us that respect and if they haven’t who knows what could happen.”