Whitstable Town are back on the Road to Wembley this weekend in the defence of their Isuzu FA Vase as they head for Hertfordshire to face Harpenden Town with manager Jamie Coyle keen to defend their title.

They face Town of the Spartan South Midland League Premier Division  for a place in the last sixteen of this year’s competition.

Last weekend, Jamie Coyle’s side came from behind to win at Stansfeld 2-1 courtesy of late goals from Bradley Schaffer and Javaun Splatt to stretch their lead over Larkfield and the chasing SCEFL Premier pack to 11 points in what was their last league game for three weeks with Vase and League Cup ties awaiting over the next two weekends.

We caught up with Coyle after training this week and he said, “It was a tough game at Stansfeld as expected – I keep being told from different management teams that sides are saving their best performances for when they play us because of what we achieved last year and that target has been on our back all season.

“They (Stansfeld) were a real tough nut to crack especially after we conceded a sloppy early goal, it gave them impetus to put bodies on the line and block shots. We looked at the stats at training – twelve corners for, thirteen long throws into their box and they had no corners, and we defended really well after the first five minutes.

“We knocked on the door for the whole game, and the boys have to take huge credit for their patience and resilience to keep going. We have done that a lot this year and scored a lot of late goals because of the fitness and the quality that comes off the bench as well to change things. A good mature performance eventually on Saturday that gave us the points!”

Every win takes Whitstable ninety minutes closer to a return to the Arch, and if they are successful on Saturday, they will be into the last sixteen, but will the pressure start ramping up too for the repeat?

“I don’t think the pressure is growing on us,” the manager admitted. “I think everyone is looking forward to it. We are four or five games away from going back to Wembley and we have a really good vibe in the camp at training this week and I think everyone involved in the Club are looking forward to the game on Saturday.”

“What we did last season is an achievement that will stay with us for the rest of our lives. I think the biggest thing when you are delivering team talks and talking about analysis in preparing for the game, you can actually believe that it is achievable to go back to Wembley and try and retain the trophy because we have been there, done it and got the experience.

“There are boys in the team like Schaff’s (Schaffer) and Deano (Dean Grant) who were cup-tied last year and had nearly the whole journey without being able to play for us and now for them it’s a great opportunity as we are not that far away from being able to go back there.”

“We’ve now got the gap at the top of the league and that was the plan. We spoke to the players after Christmas, and we reset and started again, and we have since won four out of four. It was the plan to try and get clear like this by this time as the next two weeks we are in Cup competitions, so it gives us a buffer allowing us to really focus on the Vase and the League Cup the week after against Fisher. We are in a good place – we’re far from achieving anything right now but we have given ourselves a really nice cushion so that we can concentrate on the Cups.”