Hyde away, we'll give it all we've got

The first round of the Trophy was drawn earlier in the week, and we’ve been given a trip to Hyde.

I think we were all hoping for a home draw against one of the teams going well in the Conference Premier, like Gateshead, Halifax or Grimsby, but we’re not disappointed to have drawn Hyde United from the Conference North away.

• Click here for more from Spennymoor captain Chris Mason in his new Northern Echo column

We’ve got a great away record in league and cup – remember it’s only a few weeks since we won at Leek in the Trophy – so we won’t be worried about playing there next Saturday. We’ll be going there full of confidence, plus it isn’t too long a trip. At least we hope not, considering the roads around Manchester!

To be in the first round proper is a great achievement for the club, and the first time the club has got there since it was a reformed nearly ten years ago. We’re the only club from our division to reach this stage, which isn’t bad going. We’ve achieved one of the targets set by the chairman, Brad Groves, and we have a chance to improve upon it.

We played really well against Chasetown last Saturday in the third qualifying round. We created loads of chances in both halves, and we could have won by more. The lads on the left – Anthony Peacock, Gavin Cogdon and Steve Capper – had plenty of space to work with and were dangerous all afternoon.

It was great to see the youngsters contribute to the win at Brighouse the other night in the league cup.

They played really well in the 90 minutes, and kept their nerve for the penalty shootout to win 5-4. For some of them, it was their first taste of a penalty shootout – so now they can take penalties anytime, because the rest of us have missed a few in the past!

It was great to bump into the Darlo lads on our recent night out and have a chat about how things are going and analysing games and opponents – well, sort of! Busted (Ian Watson) followed us around everywhere, so we’re wondering if he’s fancying a move! Not sure we’ll be able to fit him in, plus he’s Trophy-tied anyway.

We’re off to Mossley in the league on Saturday for the latest game in our hectic schedule. We’re going there full of confidence after some really good wins recently, and we’ll be setting ourselves up in the usual way for an away game. We’ve learned that you’ve got to set yourself up in different ways in this league. Mossley have had some good results this season, but we’ve got a very good away record that we want to maintain.