BUXTON boss Steve Cunningham is urging his players to embrace the FA Cup fever – and is ready to enjoy a tie of his ‘own’.
The NPL Premier side are less than a week away from hosting League One club Morecambe in front of the BBC cameras on Saturday lunchtime.
Their Silverlands ground has already started to be transformed ready for the big tie where a sell-out crowd will witness their first second round tie since 1958.
Cunningham challenged his team to become the league leaders in the weeks leading up to the match although a defeat at Lancaster City and then a midweek draw Nantwich Town dented those hopes. But he has been pleased with their commitment and doesn’t mind them getting wrapped up among the FA Cup glamour.
“You don’t want it to be a distraction but how can it not be?” Cunningham told <span xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” class=”ld_italic”>The <span class=”ld_italic”><span class=”ld_bold”>NLP. “You look at it and think do players pull out of challenges? Do they want to be playing full 90-minute games? But my group do.</span></span></span>
On Tuesday, the players put in a performance where the FA Cup was not a distraction, we just had one lapse of concentration.
“These moments don’t come round often so you’ve got to embrace it. There’s cameras at the club and endless numbers of broadcasters there.
“The players are getting involved in local community initiatives and sponsorship deals. Come Saturday we shouldn’t have the distraction anymore because, in theory, Morecambe should win.
“What would be nice is we’ve got the distraction of an FA Cup third round game against Man United away!”
Buxton will be without Ben Turner and Ben Milnes who have long-term injuries while they’re appealing the red card shown to Josh Granite against Nantwich. Chris Dawson and James Hurst have also been playing through knocks but Cunningham is confident in whatever he has available.
The former Curzon Ashton manager’s first game in charge was against York in the previous round although now feels more settled.
“We made a small contribution to the game at York but now we’ve won it this is our team we’ve had for six games,” he said. “It feels very much like our game now. We’re doing all the hard work in the background on the preparation for Morecambe.”
