LYE Town are hoping for a sprinkling of FA Cup magic to kick-start their season this Friday night.

This season the road to Wembley starts at Stourbridge Road when Town host Midland Alliance outfit Coventry Sphinx in the extra-preliminary round (7.45pm kick off).

While such a statement may be guilty of slight exaggeration - there are eight other ties taking place on the night - there is no doubt this could be a very special occasion.

The club’s ground-sharing arrangement with the cricket club means August home games are rare indeed and then there is the competition itself. Every year pundits lament its demise but there is no doubt it is very much alive and kicking among the game’s grassroots.

Lye joint boss Martin Thomas says the club are delighted to once more be involved but expects a tough task against Sphinx.

He said: “It’s going to be a big night for us and hopefully we can get a decent crowd in.

“In all honesty we didn’t expect to be in the cup at all because of where we finished in the league last season and we were over the moon when we heard we were in.

“Of course, the flip side of that is we have been handed a very difficult draw.

“Both me and (joint boss) Darren Goodall have experience of playing Sphinx and they are a good side - top half in the Alliance.

“If we play like we have so far this season then we’ll get beat but we have the players who can turn it around.”

Lye picked up their first point of the season with a 0-0 draw at Malvern Town on Tuesday and what will no doubt have been a welcome clean sheet for a team which conceded 11 goals in the first three games.

Thomas said he and Goodall still had plenty of belief in the players and said the situation had not been helped by injuries and player unavailability.

He added: “There is no single reason for why we have started poorly, though organisation at the back hasn’t helped.

“We’ve also had problems fielding a stable side because we’ve had players off with injuries, holidays and work commitments.

“It’s a funny thing, we’ve had eight on the treatment bench including the likes of Lee Dimmock, Matt Webb and Gavin Winsper.

“I don’t want to make it sound like an excuse - it’s just a fact of how things are.

“The players are good enough, we don’t doubt that but the injuries do not help.”