Spennymoor midfielder Lewis Dodds says that he might never have another chance to reach the first round proper of the FA Cup.

Dodds lines up in the centre of midfield on Saturday against AFC Telford knowing that this might be his last chance to appear in the first round proper of the FA Cup and possibly a game against one of the big guns from League One or Two.

“I’ve been involved in cup runs before, but never played in the first round proper,” he said. “When I was at Durham, we got to the fourth qualifying round against Histon and lost in a replay down there, and when we’ve looked as if we’re going to do well with Spennymoor, we’ve lost at Witton Albion and Southport. We were dreading those games a little bit because those teams were going well.

“Today might be the best opportunity I’ll ever have to play in the first round, at the age of 29, I don’t know whether any more chances will come my way. It’s the same for some of the other lads, but I’ll be especially pleased for our chairman, Brad Groves, because he’s put so much time and effort into the club that he deserves some reward.

“Steve Capper has played in the competition proper though when he was with Scarborough. They played Chelsea at the McCain Stadium, and he said that it was a fantastic day for everyone involved. He managed to swop shirts with Wayne Bridge at the end of the game – he’d tried to get Didier Drogba’s but somebody beat him to it.”

Moors go into the game in great form, being unbeaten since September 20th when they lost at Warrington. “Telford are going to be in for a shock judging by the way we’re playing at the moment. We’ve had some very good results recently, and last Saturday, we played badly and won at Harrogate.”

He says that he doesn’t fancy a replay in Shropshire next week.

“It reminds me of the Vase semi final we had against Guernsey two seasons ago – it’s a straight shootout. It will be all or nothing for us, because we don’t want the problem of a midweek replay down there. We’ll be going for broke, no sitting back.

“Telford will be fools to underestimate us. If they think that just because we play in a league three below them and we’ll be easy to beat, then they’ll be mistaken. We’ve had a couple of reports about them, and we know that they’re a young and physical side that is direct and will run for 90 minutes – maybe a bit similar to clubs in our league.

“We’ve discovered that the higher the team we play, the better we play.”