Amy Dunton-payne

manager

It’s always a huge honour to manage a team in the FA Cup. It’s such a prestigious competition and there’s something about an FA Cup weekend that just feels different. It’s a big occasion for the players, the staff and everyone around the club, and it’s certainly not something we ever take for granted. Not everybody gets the opportunity to be involved in this competition, so whenever we do, we want to embrace it, enjoy the occasion and make the absolute most of it.

For me personally, wearing both hats as Ladies Manager and a Director of the club, I think the significance of having the women’s team competing in the FA Cup is massive. It shows how far this section of the club has come and, more importantly, where we want it to go. We want the Ladies to be a big part of Berkhamsted FC, we want people coming down to watch them, talking about them and getting behind what we are trying to build here.

Last season we managed to progress to the Second Round Qualifying, and naturally we want to achieve something similar again this year and hopefully go even further. So we go into Sunday with high hopes of making sure Berkhamsted is in the hat for the next round.

I have massive confidence in this squad. We showed in the Preliminary Round what we are capable of, scoring eleven goals against a side from our own division. A result like that gives you confidence, but we also know the FA Cup can throw anything at you and nothing is guaranteed. We’ll have to earn the right to progress.

What I do know is that this group will bring the energy. They will compete, they will work for each other and they will give absolutely everything they have.

Hopefully we can get a bumper crowd down at the Glencar and create a proper cup atmosphere. Having people behind the girls makes such a difference, especially on occasions like this, and we want Sunday to feel like a big day for the whole club.

The girls will show up, we’ll show up, and hopefully we can put in a performance that makes a statement about what this team is capable of.

I have so much belief in this group and in what we are building.

Now it’s about going out there and showing it.

Up the Berko.