WEMBLEY is no place for losers. But West Auckland goalkeeper Jordan Nixon was determined to take the positives from an otherwise unsuccessful day at the national stadium.

His team beaten but not battered by Sholing, downed by an unfortunate deflection off Lewis Galpin that looped over the stranded Nixon’s head, the former Darlington stopper admitted his disappointment at returning home without the FA Vase, but was philosophical in defeat.

“Playing at Wembley is the best thing that can happen to a footballer,” said Nixon. “Getting beat is not great but we just had to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the occasion. It’s one of those things – someone has to lose and someone has to win.

“It’s my first time at Wembley, but at the end of the day once we got on the pitch it was 11 lads, 15 in the squad. It’s a great day out though, and we wanted to make it greater by winning. It would have topped it off. It’s gone now and we’ve got to move on.

“I can’t imagine what it would be like playing when it is full, we had a few thousand here today and it was a quality occasion. I had all the family down, it was brilliant.”

For West, the long road back from North London to south west Durham has been done before, but for Nixon this was his first taste of football within the £757million stadium – and he wants to go back.

“Next season we’ll have another chance and we’ll do it properly,” he said. “It’s a massive achievement getting here. We got beat but we can’t forget what it took to get here. If we can do it again, hopefully we can get to this fantastic arena another day.

“We’re all local lads and we want to do well for each other. We had a fixture pile-up and it was hard coming into the game. Obviously we didn’t get the win, it’s unfortunate for us all, but we’re a good bunch of lads and we’ll bounce back.”