Shildon coach Phil Brumwell is looking for another big FA Cup performance from his inconsistent players today.

The Railwaymen go to the Midlands for their tasty last qualifying round clash against Norton United from the Evo-Stik First Division South, and Brumwell is hoping that they will greatly improve on last Saturday’s poor 1-0 defeat at Bishop Auckland.

“There’s a real buzz about the club at the moment, everybody is excited about the game,” he said. “We’re the last club from the Northern League left in the competition, and one of the last from our level of the system.

“We’ll prepare for the game properly, but I don’t think our bus will be arriving late at the ground this time as it did for Stourbridge!. We got to the ground and the ref would only allow us a few minutes’ warm up. What really got the lads’ backs up was when he allowed Stourbridge to have an extra warm up. Maybe that helped our performance.

“Home or away doesn’t really bother us, we’ve proved that already. We beat Stalybridge and Crook at home, while we’ve beaten Padiham, Whitby and Stourbridge away from home.

“Norton are one league above us, and they’re going into the game as favourites. We’re the underdogs and the pressure is off us, there’s not much expected from the lads.

“We’ve got through the earlier rounds against teams from higher up, and now we’re only one game away from the golden chalice. We have a realistic opportunity to win, but we know that we’re in for a tough game.”

The former Darlington midfielder, who scored in an FA Cup tie for Quakers back in 1995, says that the Railwaymen’s biggest problem is consistency, and he highlights the difference in their performances against Stourbridge and Bishop Auckland in the space of four days last week.

“First of all, we must have a reaction from last Saturday, because we were poor at Bishop Auckland. You scratch your head sometimes at the number of times that teams at all levels of football after a big cup win then fall below that standard in their next league game. We managed it last week after winning at Stourbridge. We set a great standard in the replay at Stourbridge, but we fell well below that at Bishop.

“From my point of view, the league game was bigger than the FA Cup tie. We’re not going to win the FA Cup, so to drop league points was very disappointing, especially as the lads have everything provided for them. All we want in return is consistency in our performances.”