Actonians have possibly the biggest challenge in the first round proper of the Women’s FA Cup this weekend – taking on FA Women’s National League Southern Premier leaders Watford, unbeaten in the league so far this season.
But manager Oliver Yazdi says his team are excited for the challenge – particularly as they’ll be on home turf.
“It’s a big competition, the FA Cup, with a massive history and at this stage there’s a lot of big teams,” he tells SheKicks.net, “so we’re looking forward to the prospect of playing Watford, especially at home.
“We know it’s going to be a tough game, a testing game, but it’s what you expect when you come up against this level of opposition and as long as we play our way, I’m sure that we’re going to give them a good game.”
“I want to take our cup form into it”
Actonians are firmly mid-table in the FAWNL Division One South-East, one tier below Watford. They have won two league matches and lost four so far this season, but had better luck and form in the cup competitions, says Yazdi.
“We had a decent run in the League Cup and we had a really positive home fixture against Ascot in the previous FA Cup qualifying round, so I’m hoping to take our cup form into this, I’d say, as opposed to maybe some of the league form,” he says.
“We started the season really strong last year and we had a very, very good first half of the campaign. This season, the level of the league has gone up quite a bit. It was a very competitive league last year anyway, but it’s just gone on even more this season with some of the new teams coming in, some of the existing teams strengthening: the overall quality in the women’s game is growing year on year and you’re seeing that translate into the level of opposition and how difficult the league’s going to be.
“We’ve had an okay start, probably not picked up as many points as we would have liked, but we’ve had a couple of good wins in there, and every team in the league is obviously very competitive and going out to do their best, so we’re hopeful that as long as we can keep performing, we’ll pick up more wins in the next few games for sure.”
“Actonians are part of the community”
As an independent team, unattached to a men’s club who could offer support and facilities, Actonians have perhaps an even bigger challenge than the other teams in their league, which includes Fulham, QPR, Cambridge United, Luton Town and MK Dons.
But Yazdi says Actonians are rooted in their community, and are proud of the fact that they can compete with these big-name opponents – and he’s particularly pleased that they recruit and retain so many good players when there are lots of clubs out there vying for their signatures.
“We do really well to hold our own against those teams with more resources, a lot more funding. We’ve done very well to attract the players that we have coming in this summer, and also retaining the players that we have got.
“It’s always going to be a challenge against these sides that have got a far bigger budget than we have and a lot more resources, but at the end of the day, what I say to the players is, it’s 90 minutes, it’s 11v11 out there and it’s going to be the best team wins.”
