Shifnal thrilled to be in the hat for the FA Cup draw

The Shropshire outfit are one of several step six clubs that applied for the 2020/21 competition and were picked at random to join.

The draw for the extra preliminary and preliminary rounds will take place on August 18 and Shifnal will first play on September 1 – news that was welcomed by joint manager Andrew Carrier.

“After the bad news of not getting promoted last season, or winning the league, we needed a bit of good news and something to swing our way,” Carrier said.

“Considering everyone had to apply from our league to get in, and we got in, makes it sweeter – it was a one in four chance.

“It was nice that something went our way, finally.

“It will be our hardest challenge, with the way it it set up.

“All the step three and four teams have had to draw to see if they come into the competition this round or next round, so there’s a lot more teams we could face who are higher up the pyramid.

“Where normally we wouldn’t play them until the next round, it’s now all foreign to everyone this year.

“There will be some tough teams in this first round and we obviously want to test ourselves at some point, but probably not in the first round.”

The FA have been criticised for cutting the prize money back to the levels it was at in the 2017/18 season after ‘record’ numbers in the past two years.

For Carrier, however, that is not a problem as he felt cuts were due to land somewhere. However, he feels his club may miss out after replays were scrapped in the qualifying rounds of the competition.

“The money isn’t a concern, it’s understandable that there would be some cutbacks somewhere along the line,” he added.

“That’s with anything in society at the moment, not just football, so the money is not a concern at all.

“Just being involved in one of the most historic cups in any sport across the world, is enough.

“We know cutbacks would happen, we’re not naive or stupid, the money is not a problem, just being involved is a big thing.

“Regarding replays, if we did get into the later rounds at our level then we could play a big team away, nick a draw and then get 300-400 fans at our place, and we’d miss out on that.

“Saying that, we don’t know if fans will be allowed and there had to be cutbacks across the board somewhere to fit in games.

“The people at the top have had to make decisions, some people won’t agree with it, but they had to do something and I wouldn’t have liked to be there making those decisions.”

In addition to their FA Cup appearance, Shifnal will once again compete in the FA Vase next season and Carrier believes the club must be targeting success if they are achieve their ambitions.

“The FA Vase is the bigger one for us, which sounds stupid,” he said.

“It’s the competition that only goes one level above us, so if we do want to keep progressing and go up the leagues, then surely we should be able to hold our own against these teams.”