Cheltenham Town Ladies have drawn fellow Division One South West side Southampton Women in the second round Proper of the Vitality Women’s FA Cup.
The Robins went through the first round after comfortably beating Liskeard Athletic Women 4-0 yesterday afternoon at The Corinium Stadium.
Town will now return to their home ground again on Sunday 28th November, with the fixture between Southampton kicking off at 1pm.
“It’s a very interesting draw. Playing Southampton Women back at Cirencester will be a great tie with both sides in strong form and on unbeaten runs,” said first team coach Tom Davies following the draw.
“It’s a 50/50 tie and we’ve got to be at our best to come away with a chance of getting into the next round.”
The teams faced each other in the league’s opening game of the season, with Southampton coming away from The Corinium Stadium as 3-1 victors. The upcoming match will take place on the same pitch, but the Robins will be aiming for a different outcome on home soil.
As mentioned by Davies, both sides are in strong form ahead of the second round fixture at end of November. Cheltenham are unbeaten in their last six matches in all competitions. Southampton currently hold a nine match unbeaten streak, conceding only four goals in the process.
Furthermore, both sides are joint first in the league on 17 points, with Southampton just ahead of the Robins with four more goal difference.
After the weekend’s match against Liskeard, Davies was looking for a home tie and got his wish following this afternoon’s draw.
“We always say that we want any home tie. The girls want somewhere by the beach but we’ll just take a home tie. We’ll take whoever we get, we’re not too worried about it,” said Davies immediately after the first round match.
“If we get someone in and around us, then it gives us a slightly better opportunity of progressing and that’s what we want to do, but we’ll take it on its merit and go and play the game and enjoy it.”
On the basis of that, the first team coach will be eager to right the wrong of the earlier defeat with a great opportunity to test themselves in a match that is expected to be very competitive.
So far, Cheltenham have been rewarded £2,300 in prize money for getting this far into the competition, and would earn an additional £1,000 if they beat Southampton on the 29th November.
