A Buildbase FA Vase tie against Stapenhill is a blast from the past for Westfields manager Sean Edwards.
The Fields boss guided his Midland Premier League Division One side to the First Round Proper of the FA Cup last season, where they sat proudly alongside 48 teams from League One and League Two but were beaten 3-1 in a replay by Curzon Ashton.
Many moons before that though, Edwards played one of his final games as a player for Westfields, from Herefordshire, against Stapenhill in the 1989-90 Vase, scoring in a pulsating 4-4 draw in the Extra Preliminary Round.
“Believe it or not, I scored my last senior goal against Stapenhill,” said the Fields chief.
“I just caught it with my right foot on the laces and it swerved into the goalkeeper’s right top-hand corner from about 30 yards – it was the best goal I ever scored on the half-volley.
“I was an apprentice at Hereford and I’d done my cruciate ligament in a cup game against Exeter, and then had it repaired.
“I came back from the States on the Friday and Westfields rang me up on the Saturday and said: ‘would I help them out with the FA Vase game?’.
“I went and played and scored two, and on the Monday, I went and played for Hereford in a reserve game at Cardiff but I snapped the artificial ligament that I had in my knee, and it never recovered from there.”
They may have lit up the early rounds of the FA Cup last year but Edwards is hoping that the visit of East Midlands Counties League Stapenhill, from Staffordshire, will be the start of a stirring Buildbase FA Vase run.
“Most years, we’ve gone two or three rounds and then blown up, really, and you see teams that you’re envious of – the likes of Coleshill, who got to the semi-final and lost out to [eventual champions] South Shields and Hereford [2015-16 finalists], which is obviously on our doorstep,” added the Westfields boss.
“It’s a massive competition for teams at our level.
“The FA Cup last year was just surreal. You just couldn’t write it and that followed on from the FA Cup the year before, when we were 4-0 down and come back to win 6-5 in extra-time [against Kidsgrove Athletic in a Preliminary Round replay].
“We’d love to go a long way in the FA Vase and get to Wembley, just like every club at our level would.”
Buildbase FA Vase history
Westfields’ best Buildbase FA Vase runs arrived in 1986-87 and 2013-14, when they reached the Fourth Round Proper and lost out to Vauxhall Motors and Morpeth Town respectively.
Stapenhill have twice played in Second Round replays.
Did you know?
Westfields moved into their £250,000 Allpay Park home in Hereford in 2003.
One to watch
Edwards picks out left winger Aidan Thomas as a player that could play a key role against Stapenhill.
He said: “He was instrumental in the FA Cup run last year – we had two really fast wingers in Aidan on the left and a young Ghanaian lad called Sirdic Grant on the right.
“It was just disappointing that both got injured in the lead-up to the first round, otherwise we might have even got through that game [against Curzon Ashton].”
The prize
The winners of Saturday’s tie, who will progress to Second Round Qualifying and to play Daventry Town at home, will net £550 in prize money.
