Hetton Lyons eyeing third Sunday Cup title.
Hetton Lyons v Huddersfield Irish Centre
The FA Carlsberg Sunday Cup
Fourth Round Proper
1pm, Sunday 7 February
The Brewery Field, Spennymoor Town FC
Winning clubs receive £400 and losing clubs receive £200
Click here for fixtures
Hetton Lyons manager Bradley Groves wants his side to make history this season, by becoming the first club to lift The FA Sunday Cup three times.
The north-east side have their name on The Cup twice already after winning it in 2006 and 2008 and they go into Fourth Round action this weekend when they host Huddersfield Irish Centre.
Groves has been involved with the Lyons for many years now, having featured with the club as a player and then leading them through a trophy laden spell as boss in the last decade.
It all comes to a head now though, as Groves believes the Lyons are at their strongest and have firm aims of etching their names in Sunday Cup history.
“This year is a big year for us, as we’re looking to try and win it for the third time,” Groves told TheFA.com ahead of the game.
“We’ve won it twice in four years, and the other two years that we haven’t won it, we’ve been beaten by the team who has gone on to win it, Scots Grey and Coundon Conservative.
“So we’re really looking forward to Sunday and it should be a good game.”
The confidence within Groves’ team is sky high at the moment too, having gone all season without a single defeat and plundering plenty of goals in the process. Understandably, Groves is hopeful of progressing again in The Sunday Cup.
“It’s probably been our best ever season so far,” he added.
“Out of the 13 years we’ve had, and we’ve won in excess of 60 trophies, I think this is our best squad.
“We’ve won every game this season and we’ve scored over 100 goals and conceded eight in all competitions.
“We still have the main nucleus of the team which won it in 2008, with the likes of Gavin Cogden, Keith Finch, Ian Dixon and Chris Mason in there, and I think there is about nine of the team which won still in the squad.
“On top of that, we’ve added new players to the squad too.”
The Hetton squad will certainly be prepared for their game though, as Groves always makes sure they know what they are likely to come up against.
A quick look at Huddersfield’s run to this stage of the competition reveals some impressive results, including a victory over last season’s runners-up Oyster Martyrs.
“We never ever take anybody likely, and we always do our homework on teams,” revealed Groves.
“If you look historically over the last few years, they’ve always been around the last 32 or last 16 and in the last round, they went and beat Oyster Martyrs over in Liverpool.
“We’ve played Oyster ourselves, so we know how hard that is and it will have been an incredibly tough game so we know we’re in for a hard match on Sunday.
“They will be very organised and we know that anyone who goes to Oyster Martyrs and wins is going to be a very good outfit, but the drive we have is to win so Sunday is a major game and we know they are going to be a very good side.”
