Before I begin, I’d like to say
thank you to Jeff Voller the secretary of St Helens Town AFC, for his speedy
and helpful reply to my email. Now, let’s
get to business:-
It is the Preliminary Round of
the FA Cup 2013/14, and in this round teams that are 7 divisions lower than the
Premiership big boys are entered.
Our victors Ashton Athletic from the Extra Preliminary Round have drawn an away tie against Curzon Ashton. It is the battle of the Ashtons - Ashton-in-Makerfield verses Ashton-under-Lyne.
V
Curzon Ashton was founded in 1963
and as our journey travels to the Tameside Stadium, the club will be celebrating their 50th year of
existence (only 10 years less than my existence – scary!). The club was formed
when Curzon Road and Ashton Amateurs were merged into one team. The Stadium was opened in September 2005 by Sir
Alex Ferguson in a friendly game against Manchester United. Curzon Ashton play in the Evo-Stik League
First Division North (last season they finished 7th in the league –
missing out on the play-offs by 7 points) – this season they are currently in 2nd
place, having played 2 and won 2. Curzon Ashton are in the 8th tier of the football league so should be favourites
for the game against Ashton Athletic – they play one division lower in the
North West Counties Football League - Premier Division. However, last year's final shows that FA Cup games are not always won by favourites - hence the magic.
Curzon is approx 8 Miles east of
Manchester in Ashton-under-Lyne. From
the map below you can see that it is 31.8 Miles from Brocstedes Park (A) to Tameside Stadium (B). Our FA Cup journey
has travelled 36 Miles in two rounds from its current home in Wigan, to
Curzon via Ashton.
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