HIGHWORTH Town manager John Fisher admitted that his side had more than one eye on Saturday’s big FA Vase tie as they slumped to a 4-1 defeat against high-flying Flackwell Heath yesterday.

The Worthians welcome Yorkshire outfit Tadcaster Albion, who sent a scout to the Elms on Saturday, in the quarter-finals of Vase next week.

And while Fisher said that he planned to play a full strength side against the Hellenic League Premier Division title-chasers, he knew that it would be difficult to keep whatever side he sent out focused.

“Everyone is just thinking about next weekend,” Fisher said. “It is no good saying otherwise.

“No one wants to get injured - I don’t want anyone injured and it was a very difficult game.

“But saying that, Flackwell Heath are a very good side. I think they’ll probably go on to win the title, and even if we had been fully focused, it would have been incredibly tough.”

Highworth’s task against Flackwell, who had striker Dan Burnell net all four of their goals whilst Ryan King grabbed the hosts’ consolation, was made even more difficult by the fact that Shaun Carter was sent off for stamping midway through the first half.

“He had to go – no two ways about it,” Fisher said. “When we went to Highmoor on February 9, I said to the lads to go out there and give it their all and they did.

“And they did that again on Saturday, but as I said before, everyone is thinking about the Vase game.”

The Worthians boss also said that the scout from Tadcaster, who defeated Matby Main 3-2 yesterday, would have learnt very little from yesterday’s performance.

“At first he tried to pretend that he wasn’t from Tadcaster, but he had a thick Yorkshire accent,” said Fisher.

“We got speaking and I told him that he would learn very little. He stayed for the first half and then left.

“To be honest, if we’d had them watched yesterday, I’m not sure how much we would have got from it.

“We have now got a full week to prepare – the league has kindly called off our Reading (Town) game on Tuesday night.”