York City Prepare For A South Shields Second Showing

The FA Cup takes centre stage this Saturday and with the competition back in focus football fans are upset hunting.

York may want to get on the phone to their counterparts from the north east and take heed of any warnings which come their way.

Darlington will want to forget very quickly what happened at Blackwell Meadows, Shields of the Evo-Stik North sent them spinning out 3-0.

It was a performance Darlo manager Martin Gray said was the worst since he arrived at the club in 2012.

Now Shields joint manager Graham Fenton has spoken about facing another side from the same division in the third qualifying round.

“We’re hugely excited by the draw, and delighted that we’re at home,” he said.

“I’m sure we’re going to get quite a few people in to watch it and it will be another fantastic occasion for everybody involved with the club.

"It will undoubtedly be a massively tough game, but we’ll go into it with the belief that we can beat them. We’ll respect them, but not fear them."

Fenton told the South Shields Gazette that he expects York to be a tougher nut to crack next weekend.

“York are a full-time football club and should be a very fit and strong team," he said to the paper.

"We should take a lot of confidence from Saturday’s game that we can beat teams from that level, though.

"We know that Darlington weren’t at their best on Saturday, but we were excellent. We’re going to have to have a similar type of performance to have a chance of progressing further. There’s no reason why we can’t."