DARLINGTON assistant manager Terry Mitchell has his sights are set on a good run in the FA Trophy, starting today in the second round against Buxton at Blackwell Meadows.

Mitchell has sampled management at Wembley with Consett in the Vase final three years ago, and was Gateshead assistant manager when Quakers beat them over two legs in that famous two legged Trophy semi final in 2011.

“To every non-league club, the Trophy is a chance to go to Wembley Stadium,” he said. “I’ve been lucky enough to go there once with a previous club in the Vase and 100 per cent I want to go there again with Darlington.

“I was at Gateshead when we played Darlington in the semi-final. It was 3-2 at Darlington and then 0-0 at the International Stadium. It was a game that never happened for us at the time, hopefully it will be with Darlington this season.”

Quakers take a break from their league campaign to take on Buxton, who are fifth in the table, nine places and five points above Darlington.

“Buxton are a good footballing side. There are loads of different styles of football in this division as we all know.

“They’re a full-time club with quite a number of young players who like to play attacking football.

“They play out from the keeper, and they’ll be a difficult test like they were earlier in the season when we played them. It wasn’t one of our better days then. We are up for it today and looking forward to the game.”

Quakers were perhaps fortunate to pick up a point in midweek against Peterborough Sports thanks to a stoppage time goal by Toby Lees, and Mitchell said; “We were all disappointed with Tuesday’s game, but we’ve got to move on. We’ve got to think positive. There was some good stuff in there, but we felt that there was some stuff we can improve on. We can’t keep looking back, we must look forward.”

Quakers will definitely be missing midfielder Will McGowan because Gateshead won’t allow him to be cup tied, but Doncaster and Sunderland have both given Quakers permission to field Will Flint and Caden Kelly respectively.

Midfielder Tom Platt might make the subs bench after recovering from injury, but striker Andrew Nelson, midfielder Matty Cornish and defender Ben Hedley will still be out injured.

Buxton have lost just once in their last six matches. They beat Quakers 2-0 at Silverlands earlier in the season. They include former Darlington players Tom Elliott and Kieran Burton in their squad.

If today’s game ends in a draw after 90 minutes, then the teams will go straight to penalties.