The unofficial AFC Rushden & Diamonds messageboard

Sid wrote:No UCL side has reached the First Round Proper of the F.A. Cup or the Vase Final in about 30 years!

FA Cup 1st Round: 17 November 1984 - Buckingham Town 0 Orient 2
FA Vase Final: 28 April 1984 - Stamford 2 Stansted 3 (at Wembley)
To be precise.

Yeah I think talk of the First Round is a bit much at this stage. We've done very well to reach this stage and it would be a fantastic achievement to still be in the competition in October. I would prefer a run in the Vase because that's a competition that we've got a good chance of winning with our squad and it provides an interest throughout the season, whereas the Cup's just going to be for the next few weeks at a maximum.

I remember Hythe getting to the 1st Round Proper a couple of years ago from Step 5 before getting battered away at Hereford. Think i'm right in saying King's Lynn reached the 4th Qualifying Round during their time in the UCL before narrowly losing away at Tamworth.

In 05/06 then Step 5 Chasetown took Oldham to a replay which is probably the most impressive.

Then of course there's Southend Manor who lost to K*ttering at Nene Park in the 4th Qualifying Round.

If we face a team from Step 3 or above we've got problems. We haven't got anywhere near enough defensively to cope with a team from that level IMO.

1-1 Dunks for us. Merrill straight red.

3-1.

Two in 2 minutes.

Taylor and Dunks

3-1 FT. We're good at replays.

3 - 1 final score.

and bring on a home cup tie week on Saturday!

A great performance from us against all the odds. Dunstable didn't look anywhere near as good as they did on Saturday. That said the lads can be proud of their performances tonight. Thought Dunks and Kingy were exceptional. Delighted we're through.

There's probably only a handful of Step 5 sides better than Dunstable on Saturday's showing. Let's hope we can avoid them all and get as far as possible.

The referee was abosolutely pathetic. The Joe Merrill red card which (unless there's something i've missed) wasn't even a booking, the disallowed own-goal, and then he even managed to blow for full time only to ask the players to play a further two minutes. Incredible.

I was in the far side of the De Banke, was anybody closer to the Merrill incident that may be able to shed some light on it?

I thought there was some really nice passing moves in the first half and the first goal was good with a clinical finish from Dunks to finish it, though I don't what was going on with the red card, granted I was a long way away from it, but I would have been annoyed even it was a yellow to be fair. I want to not moan about the refs so much at this level, because they get so much stick, but when they make bewildering decisions like that, or the penalty that never was at Huntingdon, I can't help it. Good win though, Dunstable must have been a bit shell shocked at how quickly we scored those 2 goals despite being down to 10 men.