FA Trophy First Qualifying Round replay

Dorking Wanderers 1 Taunton Town 3

AN exhausted but happy Taunton Town party arrived back in town at 2.30am on Wednesday morning after an 11-hour round trip to Dorking, metaphorically clutching a cheque of £2,700 and an invitation to play Bognor Regis Town in the next round of the FA Trophy, writes Kerry Miller.

It was just reward for a superb performance which was a pleasant surprise after a tortuous four hour journey to Westhumble in Surrey where the squad could have been excused if they had taken a while to gel but there was none of that.

Jordan Rogers shrugged off his barren spell in front of goal with two stunning first-half strikes, backed up by an even better one from Jamie Short which had boss Leigh Robinson saying :“I couldn’t have asked for anymore.”

He added: “We haven’t been getting the rub of the green lately but tonight we just clicked and we were clinical up front.

“The quality hasn’t been there in the final third but tonight we showed what we can do.”

It all means that Isthmian League Premier Division Bognor Regis Town will visit the Viridor Stadium on Saturday week in the next round of the Trophy, before which they have games at Marlow and home to Wells City.

This Saturday Town travel once again, this time to Marlow FC’s excellent Alfred Davis Memorial Ground for a league match against a side who have won six out of their last seven games in all competitions but who are 14th in the table.

Marlow beat Larkhall Athletic 3-0 in the Trophy on Saturday and Robinson is hopeful that Craig Veal, Dale Evans and Ben Carter will all be available for the trip.

They then entertain Wells City on Tuesday as they look to defend the Somerset Premier Cup before Bognor’s visit.

Robinson is relishing the challenge once again and said: “We enjoyed the games with Truro and we shall be underdogs again”.

The Rocks are six points behind leaders Dulwich Hamlet but have three games in hand and are sure to bring a healthy following to Taunton but the manager is confident of a positive outcome.

He said: “We came good against Dorking and can do it again - Jordan is back on the scoresheet, Aiden Chainey and Josh Klein-Davies had great games and it all looks good.”

The victory brings the total in the coffers from FA games this season up to more than £7,600 and a win on Saturday week would boost it to almost five figures - a tidy sum for Town.

It also means that two more midweek home games will have to be fitted in, with the visit to basement side Bashley tentatively pencilled in for early December and what would have been a home game with Banbury United on Saturday week, also now on a future Tuesday night.