Ossett Town are full of confidence ahead of the trip to Marine for the FA Cup first qualifying round tie, according to John Reed
Ossett Town chief John Reed would love to add to his long back-catalogue of FA Cup memories at Marine tomorrow.
Ossett are the “underdogs”, but they travel over to Liverpool in buoyant mood because of the fantastic 3-1 Evo Stik Division One North victory over Scarborough Athletic in midweek.
Ossett beat Stockport Sports in the Preliminary Round and Reed, who has reached the first round proper twice, said: “It’s massive for the club because of the financial boost.
“We have got £2,000 from the last round and it goes up to three now.
“We’ll go to Marine full of confidence, but we have a job to do and if it means we have to drag them back to Ossett on the Tuesday then that is what we’ll have to do.
“We are massive underdogs, but we were massive underdogs on Tuesday night against Scarborough.
“It’s massive is the FA Cup and I’ve had some great journeys in my 37 years.”
Town’s start to the Division One North campaign has been indifferent.
Ossett won their opening fixture before losing three on the spin and then drawing at Radcliffe in the league.
Reed delivered a tactical master-plan to end the barren run against Scarborough and he said: “We’ll carrying on playing like we did against Scarborough and we’ll play like that tomorrow at Marine.
“It has given us great heart. In the last two games we have had a win and a draw and hopefully we can climb the table.
“I was very proud and we looked a team. We just haven’t had the luck up to Tuesday.
“We lost at Farsley in the last minute. Warrngton were possibly the strongest side (we have played), but it was 2-1 until five minutes from time.
“Then the Spennymoor game was down to the officials as they massively affected the game.
“We were 1-0 up close to half-time and they knocked a ball down into the corner and all my defenders came to the six-box line and this kid was stood two yards offside.
“He looked at the linesman, put it in, then looked again and everyone knew it was offside, but the goal was given.
“There was another controversial moment. After they scored their second goal, we had a real go.
“With ten minutes to go, Rob Bordman made a fantastic run and he got absolutely flattened in the box and the referee didn’t give the penalty.
“Even their manager said it was the clearest penalty you’ll ever see. Two bad decisions cost us dearly.”
The goal-scorer of Ossett’s opening goal in the win over Scarborough Athletic was retired defender Lee Connor, who helping Reed out.
“As a manager you have to try and hide your emotions and I wanted to run on the field and grab him,” Reed said when asked on his thoughts as Connor’s header hit the back of the net.
“I was delighted for him because he is a local lad.
“He knows we have a problem because Nick Wood can’t play in midweek and to be honest he went in and was magnificent, there’s no other word for it.”