They may be FA Vase holders, but Whitstable Town go into Saturday’s FA Cup third qualifying round tie at home to Hungerford Town as underdogs as Jamie Coyle’s side look to reach the final qualifying round for the first time ever having reached the third qualifying round for the first time since 1989. 

We caught up with the Oystermen’s boss after Tuesday’s surprise two nil home SCEFL defeat by Snodland Town, and Coyle told us ahead of his side’s latest “big” game, “It’s great that we have had a good run so far, but our bread-and- butter is the League we know that which has to be the focus. It’s been hard to look ahead after such a disappointing night on Tuesday!” 

“We had Hungerford watched on Tuesday, they lost five one at home and we had a light session on Thursday as we are the walking dead at the moment.  

“It wasn’t too much on Thursday it couldn’t be, we had a very light recovery session and then it was into the classroom looking back on Tuesday and ahead to what they will bring to the Belmont on Saturday.” 

“We picked up some knocks on Tuesday which is a concern with the big games we have coming up. The players have been brilliant recently, and I would never sit here and berate the players but on Tuesday, our play in the final third was way below par!” 

“Tuesday really was a poor evening for us. We can make excuses for missing key players, we had four or five key players out. But it was an opportunity for the squad to get starts and showcase that they want to get back in the team but unfortunately collectively we weren’t good enough by a million miles.  

“It was a tough one to take as we gave them two goals but after creating loads of chances, we haven’t looked like taking any of them and were really powder puff in the final third!” 

“We had five forwards on the pitch at the end of the game and still didn’t look like we would score a goal! We cannot be losing to Snodland at home if we are to go on and get out of this League. We cannot put displays on like we did this week and get that sort of result.” 

Whitstable’s squad news doesn’t make for good news for the Oystermen’s fans as Coyle gave us the bad news saying, “We really are the Walking Dead going into the weekend!  

“We’re just hoping that Finn O’Mara is OK, Javaun Splatt is OK; Theo Osinfolarin is potentially another week away and we’ve wrapped Jake McIntyre up in cotton wool after he tweaked something against Snodland, we probably won’t be able to get more bodies in as the chances are by now they will be cup-tied. It’s a real tough one as we try and put a team together to give a better account of ourselves that we did on Tuesday!”