Whether it’s for the glory or the money, Saturday’s FA Cup preliminary round tie is well worth fighting for.

Sittingbourne are at home to a Bearsted side who play at one level lower in football’s pyramid, and are looking forward to one of the biggest ever games in their long 123-year history.

It’s a big game for Sittingbourne, too, not least because there’s a cheque in the post for £2,890 for the winners.

And, of course, the prize money goes up each round a team progresses, and for any club like Sittingbourne an injection of unbudgeted cash is a huge bonus.

For the players, it’s about winning another football match as well as bringing an extra splash of excitement and glamour to the club.
Sittingbourne have made a very promising start to the season, winning both their Bostik South East League matches, and stretching Tonbridge Angels all the way in an exciting Tuesday night Kent Senior Cup-tie.

They were the underdogs in that match, Tonbridge playing their football in a league higher, but it will be the other way round on Saturday. Bearsted are in the division below, the Southern Counties East League, and haven’t got a point from any of their three matches played so far. But they have had a win this season, and an important one, too, beating Chichester a fortnight ago in the previous round of the FA Cup.

Funnily enough the teams played each other last month in a pre-season friendly just before the FA Cup draw paired them together, Sittingbourne winning that day 2-0 at Bearsted. Sittingbourne have gone out of the FA Cup at this stage for the last two seasons, disappointingly losing 1-0 at home to Sussex County League side Pagham this time last year.

One thing they’ll be on their guard against when Bearsted make the short journey to Woodstock is making sure they don’t give away any more penalties.

They conceded one last Saturday, but fought back to beat Greenwich Borough 4-2 with excellent goals by Ira Jackson (2), Tom Loynes and Dan Parkinson.

Then they gave away three more on Tuesday at Tonbridge – in fact, if the match had been decided on goals from open play Sittingbourne would have won 2-1.

All four penalties resulted from what I thought were honest challenges for the ball by four different Sittingbourne players, but on opponents who had maneuvered themselves into positions that allowed them to go to ground easily.

Funnily enough, both Jackson and Bola Dawodu raced into the Tonbridge area at speed and when touched could easily have fallen over, but both preferred to try to stay on their feet and continue with the attack.

As it was, a young Sittingbourne team learned a harsh lesson from the game but at least know they played some outstanding attacking football in taking the game to Tonbridge, particularly in the second half.

Loynes, incidentally, captained the Sittingbourne team in the absence of normal skipper Chris Webber, and lost one tag on the night – at 25, the oldest player in the squad.

Coming on in the second half as a substitute was the very experienced Nathan Elder, a striker new to the club with a particular talent for heading goals.

It’s a big weekend for Sittingbourne as after the Bearsted game they’ll be in action again on Bank Holiday Monday afternoon, at Woodstock again, and this time against title favourites Cray Wanderers.