Morpeth Town are flying the flag for northern football in The FA Vase this season - and they were rewarded with a trip to Qatar ahead of their Fifth Round showdown at Eastbourne United on Saturday.
The club's sponsors paid for the trip to sunnier climes in preparation for the clash at the Sussex club and manager Nick Gray hopes the excursion pays dividends.
"We've certainly prepared well," he told TheFA.Com.
Eastbourne Utd v Morpeth Town
The FA Carlsberg Vase
Fifth Round Proper
3pm, Saturday 15 February
The Oval, Eastbourne
Winners receive £2500
By Alex Shaw
"We had a trip through the sponsors to Qatar and we worked our socks off training over there. We played a match too and they worked very hard. They absolutely loved it - it was great for team bonding.
"It was late 70s, early 80s [degrees Fahrenheit] over there so a lot of our training was done towards the evening when it cooled down a bit."
The Northumberland club are the most northerly side left in this season's competition and with a trip to Wembley just three matches away, Gray has told his players to keep their feet on the ground.
Morpeth had previously never reached the Fifth Round of the competition before and Gray said: "We're away from home - it's a fair old trip to Eastbourne as they're only a couple of miles from France!
"We're going on the Friday and staying in a nice hotel so we couldn't have prepared any better.
“Getting to Wembley is an incentive but we cannot look that far. It's about taking this game on - we could be 13 games from Wembley and it would still be huge.
The FA Vase Fifth Round takes place this week
"We're the underdogs but we will rise to the occasion and take everything we did in Qatar to this match. It's about playing the match and not the occasion.
"This is the first time in the Fifth Round so it's unknown territory for us."
Eastbourne are riding high at the top of the Sussex County League Division Two, although they were humbled 6-1 by Bognor Regis Town in the Senior Cup recently.
They may be a wounded beast but Gray will not be reading too much into such a crushing defeat.
He added: "To be honest, we may have suffered a similar result, as Bognor are two divisions above them. I don't think you can look into that really. They're flying high and have played well all season.
"But we have confidence ourselves and good expectations we can get a result."
