Northampton Spencer 1-2 Aylesbury United
The FA Cup First Round Qualifying
10 September 2005
Kingsthorpe Mill, Studland Road
£2,250 to the winning club




The 'Ducks' are quacking again after starting their FA Cup campaign with a victory.

It is ten years since Aylesbury United achieved their best ever FA Cup campaign, by reaching the third round where they eventually lost to Queens Park Rangers at Loftus Road.

That year the team's unusual 'duck walk' goal celebrations and the duck call hooters used by their fans made them famous. Now they are looking for another thrilling Cup run.

United’s first outing in this year’s competition, a visit to the Mill, and a victory at local rivals Northampton Spencer will raise hopes that the Buckinghamshire side can once again make an impact in the competition.

Despite a brave effort from Spencer, United were able to assert their greater league superiority by running out 2-1 winners with goals from Paul Edgeworth and substitute Scott McCafferty. Tom O’Brien replied for Spencer.

United boss Danny Nicholls savoured the victory - and wants another quack at the big boys!

He said: "The win was deserved. I’ve got ambition to go as far as we can in The FA Cup and get some much needed money into a club of our stature."

All the passion, the intensity and the sense of occasion that is The FA Cup was in evidence, the fixture played at a high tempo.

Spencer should have scored as early as the seventh minute when Darren Frost just failed to connect with Scott Coleman’s pinpoint cross from the right.

A minute later, United were denied by defender Pete Gregory heading Roni Joe’s header off the line as Spencer keeper Oliver Urquhart was beaten.

United went close again on seventeen minutes when Matt Hayward crafted a neat shot from the edge of the area which Urquhart did well to tip over his bar.

But the deadlock was broken six minutes before the break in a move that cut through the Spencer defence. Joe fed Drew Roberts though the middle who found a willing Edgeworth. He took his chance superbly, rifling in off the underside of the bar.

Spencer drew level three minutes after the re-start, when an un-marked O’Brien headed in Frost’s cross at the near post. But United restored their lead ten minutes later through a swift move when Roberts fed McCafferty on the left.

With only Urquhart to beat McCafferty remained composed as he despatched his effort clinically past the stranded keeper.