Steve Watt and his Hythe Town side are on the road in the FA Cup looking to emulate the Club’s famous Cup run of the past when they reached the First Round Proper on the back of a four nil opening league win last weekend. 

But Watts is the first to admit that despite the Cannons facing the same opposition in East Grinstead Town, last weekend’s score will mean nothing at three o’clock on Saturday afternoon as another Road to Wembley begins for the men from Reachfields. 

“If anything, it’s probably the hardest tie we could have asked for after last weekend’s result,” Watt explained.

“It’s never easy playing the same team back-to-back in any circumstances, let alone when one of the games is an FA Cup tie.”

“It’s going to be a tricky tie and we fully expect a tough, tough game down there – last week’s result and performance means nothing at all this weekend as it’ll be a completely different challenge for us and we’ll go there and try and get through to the next round as the FA Cup is very important to us as a Club and we need to go as far in it as we can.” 

“They are very good at home – had some great results there last year; they beat us, they beat Whitehawk, and I believe they beat Chatham early on, so it’s not an easy place to go.”

“It’s a lovely ground and they utilise it very, very well. We’ve got to do everything we can to get through.” 

“Last week was a perfect start – four goals, a clean sheet – and we couldn’t really have asked for anything more really.”

“The boys performed tremendously on the day, but and it’s something we’ve spoken about, we have to find that level of consistency through the whole season and not just part of the season.”

“We set the bar last week – we know we won’t win 4-0 every week, but we can maintain that level of performance every week so it’s really important that that’s what we strive to do to try and get as close to that level every week and if we do that, we should be at the right end of results!” 

“This season holds different challenges and different twists and turns and how we deal with that throughout the season, but you’ll only know when the season’s over how things look and hopefully we can look to match last week’s performance.” 

“The FA Cup is important to clubs like Hythe and the financial benefits you get from it for progressing.”

“So, my job is to try and get through each round and that starts Saturday, and we end up where we end up because as I say every year, there is always a Cinderella story where you have one team from the non-League goes on a fantastic run.”

“Each team strives to be that team from whenever they enter the competition – we’ve just got to try and win on Saturday and then sees what happens – what we do know is that it’s going to be a very tough game!”