The Sportsman's Road to Wembley has taken us to Trafford and Runcorn so far, but part four takes us to the north-east coast of England as Marske United prepare to take on Whitby Town in the second qualifying round of the FA Cup on Saturday.
Jurgen Klopp, Jordan Henderson and Liverpool may have lifted the FA Cup in May as they won both domestic trophies and came within a whisker of winning the quadruple, but there was another player who picked up a major accolade on that day.
The top scorer in the 2021-22 FA Cup was not Mo Salah or any other Premier League star, but Marske United’s Adam Boyes. The 31-year-old top scored with 11 goals as the Seasiders pulled off two major scalps on their way to the fourth qualifying round of the competition.
At Wembley, he had the honour of leading the teams onto the pitch before being awarded his Golden Ball in front of a sell-out crowd at Wembley. Now, The Sportsman’s Road to Wembley has led us to Marske as Boyes scored in a 2-1 win over Runcorn Linnets in the last round.
With one goal to his name already he has his sights on repeating the feat and taking Marske to the First Round Proper for the very first time. “I've got quite a good record in the FA Cup, I managed to score quite a lot last year!” he tells The Sportsman.
“The goal against Runcorn was probably the best one I have scored in quite a few years to be honest. I'm a Middlesbrough fan so I haven't got too many memories as a fan, obviously going last year was a great memory for me and to lead the teams out, and going to collect the trophy was a big achievement for me.”
The striker is already top scorer in the Northern Premier League Premier Division with five goals to his name and is now well on his way in his favourite competition. With an away trip to same level strugglers Whitby Town in the next round, Marske have high hopes of making it even further than they did last term.
“For the club it is massive for financial reasons, to get to the First Round is the aim that we set last year and we got quite close really. We beat a few good teams, South Shields, Chester, unlucky not to beat Gateshead over two games. Hopefully we can have a run like that again.”
That win over Chester was one of the best of the long reign of manager Carl Jarrett. Marske had only 11 fit players, were playing away from home and cobbled together a side of out-of-position players. They went to the side in the National League North (tier six) and won 4-0.
But Boyes is wary of making sure that his side are not on the end of an upset this time around.
“They are obviously coming to make an upset, just like we did when we beat Chester and South Shields last year,” he explains. “So, anyone can beat anyone on the day, they caused us a few problems and gave us a good game in the second half and probably could have got a draw in the end. So luckily we held on and managed to get through to the next round.”
The Sportsman will be following the winner of this tie, as we continue our Road to Wembley.
