Familiar opposition for Peterborough Sports in the third round of the FA Trophy and problems ahead of a County Cup quarter-final

On paper it’s a tough tie against a team four points and five places above Sports in the table, but the city side have not lost any of their last five meetings with Southport. They gained a 2-1 away win against the former Football League club last month. The Trophy tie will take place on Saturday, December 7.

Sports reached the third round with a comfortable 2-0 win at home to National League South side Chelmsford City on Saturday with goals from Max Booth – his first for the club – and Dan Jarvis. It was a third win in four competitive matches for in-form Sports.

Sports joint-boss Michael Gash said: “The draw is what it is. You could argue you’d rather play a big National League club, but you could also argue this game is winnable. We won there recently and we have a very good record against them, but it is tough as it’s a long haul to play a very good side.

"We didn’t play to our best against Chelmsford, but we did a very professional job in a very scrappy game and we kept our momentum going which was important.

"The back five and goalkeeper looked solid even when they were throwing a lot of men forward in the latter stages.”

The city side are back in action on Tuesday in a Northants Hillier Cup quarter-final at United Counties League side Northampton ON Chenecks (7.45pm kick off), a game Gash admits his side could do without given their shortage of available bodies.

Port Vale loanee Ben Lomax has been ruled out after rolling his ankle in the early stages of the Chelmsford match. On-loan Lincoln City midfielder Oisin Gallagher has been refused permission to play by his parent club, while Sports are hoping Barnsley take a different approach with on-loan pair Bayley McCann and Jonathan Bland.

"We want to win every cup we enter,” Gash added. “But this game is the last thing we needed given our circumstances. We have players unavailable and we have a packed schedule coming up. We’d like to make several changes, but we might only be able to make a couple because we just don’t have the players. We’ll get on with it though. We don’t really know any other way.”