University of Nottingham captain Ruby Murphy is eyeing a place in the Adobe Women’s FA Cup second round proper.
The coveted trophy paid a visit to the club – one of just two university sides remaining in the competition in the first round proper – ahead of their tie against Cambridge United this weekend.
“It’s really special,” said Murphy. “I don’t think I even realised it myself properly until the draw.
“But we’re not that surprised. We know we can be at this level, and I think there’s so many more university teams that could be in it that could go far.
“Just because we’re university clubs, it doesn’t mean we aren’t just as good and we’re going to show that on Sunday.”
It also marks the first time the club have reached this stage of the competition and Murphy believes her team have an edge.
“I think our competitive advantage at the minute is because we don’t have a lot of pressure on us,” she continued.
“We’re a young side, some of us have played semi-professionally and for external clubs, but overall, we’re quite a young squad.
“It’s not our job, we don’t get paid to be here – we’re here because we love it so maybe that’s an advantage. We just want to do ourselves and the uni proud and put us on the map.
“We’re very athletic. Yes, we’re young but we’re quite knowledgeable for a group of girls who are [aged] 18 to 23.
“We don’t have a plethora of experience but that’s almost good because we’ll go in with tenacity, we’ll play technically, but we know we’re out there to get what we want and what we want to achieve is to get through the first round proper.”
Alongside their FA Cup run, the University of Nottingham’s players are mid-way through their studies, although the schooling takes a backseat this weekend.
“The coaches are really understanding, and we as players understand what each other are juggling,” Murphy continued.
“Football isn’t our job – this is just a community that we’ve created. There are four teams here and I’m lucky enough to captain one.
“We all want sport to come first but obviously it doesn’t. We all work hard, but right now football is all we can think about and we’re putting the dissertations to the side!”
Having already come up against Boston Town, Belper Town and Brunsmeer Athletic in the qualifying rounds, the club now lock horns with fourth tier outfit Cambridge on home turf at the David Ross Sports Village.
“We’ve been coming up against some tier seven and tier six teams,” she recalled.
“We won 9-1 and then we won 10-1, and then we had a harder challenge last game facing a tier five side where we won 4-3.
“The competition is obviously getting more heated now. Again, Cambridge are a very good tier four side so we’re all really ready to go for it.”
