FA Cup Second Qualifying Round
Russ Eagle has issued a call to arms as Handsworth aim to cause a gigantic FA Cup second qualifying round shock at unbeaten Halesowen Town tomorrow.
Eagle will order his troops to take a fortunate favours the brave approach in a bid to seize the moment in front of an expected huge crowd.
But he is under no illusions of how difficult the task ahead is with Halesowen sitting top in the league above.
“(if we won) I would say it would be one of the biggest (upsets) of the round because of the way they are playing, the set-up, the fans,” Eagle told Non League Yorkshire.
“They are top of their league and at the moment I can’t see a team touching them.
“It would be a massive upset.
“We’ll take underdogs or whatever but we’re definitely going there to have a pop on Saturday.
“We won’t change how we play.
“We won’t sit seven, eight, nine, ten players behind the ball, we’ll play in the way we have from the start of the season and if we’re not good enough, we’re not good enough.
“We’re not going there just to make the numbers up and have a day out.
“We’ve up against a team I went to look at (on Saturday) and we’re not going to there to worry about them.
“We’re going to go there and give a good account of ourselves and get amongst them and see where it takes us.
“Yeah I’d like to beat them or bring them back to Handsworth on Tuesday night but realistically I know it is going to be a tough 90 minutes for us.”
The Ambers have already captured the imagination of many having already pulled off three superb results so far in the cup.
AFC Mansfield, Stocksbridge Park Steels and Coventry United have been dispatched at Olivers Mount over the past month and were all upsets.
“Anything can happen in the FA Cup,” Eagle said.
“A lot of people wrote us off against Coventry because of how they had started.
“A lot of people looked at Stocksbridge and said ‘they’re in a higher league, they should be turning you over’.
“Nobody has yet.
“We’re still 50/50 for winning that FA Cup game on Saturday.
“If you look back at the three ties, nobody would have gone ‘Handsworth 5/4 favourites’.
“They would have all gone ‘5/4 against’.”
Eagle also ranks as the trip to Halesowen as the “biggest game” in the club’s history.
“If we were to get to the next round it would put us equal to where the club has gone before (in the FA Cup),” he said.
“They got to the next round when they played Lincoln United a few seasons ago but I still class us a new club since the new era of me coming back and John (Ward) and Steve (Holmes) taking over from the former chairman (in 2019).
“I think this is the biggest game we’ve had up to now.
“We’ll be taking a few down with us and I know there’s a lot of dads, aunties, girlfriends travelling down.
“It is a massive day for the club.”
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