Match Preview

The Under-18s travel to Leatherhead in the third and final qualifying round of the FA Youth Cup on Thursday, 22nd October for a 7.45pm kick off. Directions here.

Their opponents would seem to be from Leatherhead Youth FC but the game is being played at Leatherhead’s Fetcham Grove ground and according to the FA’s site they are playing as Leatherhead FC in this competition.

In any event they offer a difficult hurdle to overcome before we can think about the competition proper. After a bye in the preliminary round they won 4-1 at Steyning Town in the first qualifying round and then faced another away game at Pagham on the Sussex coast.

We were duly impressed when Leatherhead beat Pagham 14-0 and that’s to be added to their two league wins so far by an aggregate of 10-3. So, they go into this match clearly capable of scoring goals.

That of course was the reputation of our opponents in the previous round but we denied Spelthorne even a single goal in our win. Dare I suggest that a close and exciting game could be on the cards.

The winners face a trip to meet the youth team of Football League side Gillingham in the first round proper.