After their capitulation to Aylesbury United in the FA Trophy last weekend, Sittingbourne welcome AFC Greenwich Borough back to the Staxson this weekend in the First Qualifying Round of the FA Cup. 

Both sides will be looking to progress – the Brickies on the back of that ridiculous 4-6 Trophy defeat, and Borough will look to continue the Club’s debut run in the Greatest Cup Competition in the World all this coming after the two sides played out a very competitive 1-1 draw during pre-season. 

Speaking to Brickies boss Reece Prestidge ahead of the weekend, he told us, “You know some people have complained that it’s a tough draw, but you know it’s not a bad draw for us.” 

“After all we are at home which is where we are best and we want it to still be a fortress if we can make it so! We played Greenwich pre-season of course so we know that it will be a tough test for us as they had a good result in the last round winning 4-2 at Cray Valley PM who are in our league, so we know how dangerous they are and we know that to progress, we just have to be as professional as we can on Saturday to get through.” 

Looking back to that friendly in early July, Prestedge admitted. “I’m sure there will be a completely different intensity to the friendly – it’ll be a lot more fired up I would expect. I would think that their style of play however may be similar, but we just don’t know. They have threats and dangerous players all over the pitch, something that we do know.” 

The manager he reflected on the clubs exit from the FA Trophy – he said, “Last weekend was a strange one and I think I have just about recovered from going out of the Trophy the way we did against Aylesbury. It was a very bizarre game, I thought in the first half we were decent and deserved the lead that we got at 3-0. 

“Then… “just” lapses of concentration and completely capitulating in the second half. To then go down to ten men as well after conceding three in seventeen minutes we were really up against it.” 

“In all my years in football, if I am honest, I think it’s THE most bizarre game that I have ever been involved in for a long time if not forever. With everything that went on and being in that situation – being very dominant in the first half to being what we saw after the break. They talk about the game of two halves – I think that Friday was the perfect example.” 

“We asked for a response against Ashford on Monday in the league and we got it! The league is where our heads are at more if I am honest; we need to stop conceding silly goals as we keep getting punished for silly mistakes. I think how we played the game was very good on Monday and that we deserved the win even if we still let in a couple more silly goals!”