Dunston manager Billy Irwin believes that there’ll be few, if any, Wembley nerves amongst his players when they line up against West Auckland in the all Northern League FA Carlsberg Vase final on Sunday afternoon.

Unlike West, Dunston haven’t been to Wembley before, and Irwin reckons that the pressure is off his players now that they’ve achieved their number one ambition – to play under the Wembley Arch.

“The pressure is off us now. We can go on the field knowing that we’ve done what we set out to do, which was to get to Wembley, “ said 41 year old Irwin.

“Nobody is nervous about playing there, there’s a real positive mood throughout the team, and our players have got enough belief in themselves to go out and win the game.

“It’s going to be an intense game. We know plenty about West – we’ve played each other four times this season – so we know each others’ strengths and weaknesses. “We’re not going to change our style of play – why should we when it’s worked well so far? There’s no point for just one game, the players have done what we’ve asked them to do.”

Naturally, Wembley has never been far from Dunston’s thoughts since they got to the final six weeks ago.

“We’ve spoken about Wembley many times in the build up to the game, and all of the players are positive about playing there.

“It’s the biggest day of their footballing lives, and in order to take any tension out of it we’ve been trying to get them to relax all week.

“Personally, until we’d played our last league game of the season at Sunderland RCA over a week ago, I hadn’t really thought about Wembley in much depth. There was still plenty to think about in the league and league cup, and we focused on those.

“It was only after we had a training session last Saturday and we handed the suits out to the players that it all started to sink in with me, and the excitement started to build.”

Irwin is doubly proud to be going to Wembley, because he’s Dunston born and bred, and as captain of Dunston, lifted several trophies.

“When I became manager three years ago, I never dreamt that I would be going to Wembley as manager of my home town team. There are some very good managers in the Northern League who were involved in management long before I was, and they’ve not been to Wembley.

“I’ve got a fantastic squad, the team spirit and togetherness are fantastic. We’ve had an unbelievable run to get to Wembley. I believe in being honest with the players, and I’d like to think that the players respect me for that. I know what it’s like having been a player for so many years, and what I would expect from a manager.

“We only started to believe that we would get to Wembley at Staveley in the second leg of the semi final.

“Staveley thought that they were going to Wembley when they only lost 1-0 at our place in the first leg, but they hadn’t seen the best of us by any means.

“They scored early on in the second leg, but then Andy Bulford scored. However, they went 2-1 up on the day before half time.

“But in the second half we changed things around a bit, and Steve Goddard scored the best goal of the run for me with about ten minutes left. There were fantastic scenes when the goal went in, but I was numb. I didn’t get too carried away, because I was worried that they might score and bring us down to earth.

“It is brilliant for the club, for our committee, and for everyone else concerned. Some people on our committee have been involved in the club ever since the first season. We all mix together well, and it just seemed right that we all came down to Wembley together.

“There’s been a huge amount of interest in the game in our town. People from the town are rallying around the club and there’s loads of interest. I even got a note through my door from the postman wishing us all the best. Hopefully, all of Gateshead and Dunston will be behind us.”