Preliminary rounds allowed James to live his FA Cup dream

Older Robins fans will have memories of them reaching the first round in 1976-77 – the furthest they have been in the competition when they held league side York City to a draw at the Sports Ground before losing the

replay.

But for James Scarratt, his ultimate FA Cup, indeed career, highlight was leading the team out in their last FA Cup tie, a preliminary round tie against Market Drayton Town at the Dell Stadium in 2014.

Try telling him the competition has been undervalued or forgotten – the memory of that game will live on forever.

Never mind Dudley lost 6-0 to a team who admittedly were playing two levels above in the footballing period, the honour of leading his team out in the historic competition lives on.

But it might never have been, as after coming through the extra preliminary game at Bolehall Swifts, James, who was 28 at the time, thought he wouldn’t even be playing in the game, never mind being captain.

He takes on the story: “Dudley were on a poor run of form going into the game and unfortunately my outspoken voice and passion may have upset the management and players, plus there was a new young goalkeeper who had recently joined the club.

“So when before the game Andy Allardice (the manager) pulled me aside into the stands at the Dell I was expecting him to say ‘Sorry Scazza you’re dropped today

mate’.

“Instead we spoke about my attitude, the good things and bad things with it and he told me he needed me to be as positive as I could because I was captain for the

day.

“I was shocked but excited and embraced the moment with my head held high, even though we lost 6-0 which I tend not to tell people, but it was still the biggest achievement in my football

career.

“In fact, I owe a lot to Andy because he scouted me when I was playing at Kinver FC in parks football and took me to Birch Coppice where we won the treble in the Kidderminster Premier and when they folded I won a fair few trophies with other teams.

“But when Andy stepped up to Saturday senior football and got the Dudley Town job he told me to meet him in McDonald’s and there he said he wanted me to be his number one.

“A lot of training sessions and hard work went into playing for Dudley, people don’t always see that but I owe so much to Andy for giving me that

opportunity.

“But I would give up all my trophies in Saturday and Sunday league to be a captain in the FA Cup definitely.”

Always football mad, James started playing football for Wordsley Wasps from the age of seven to 11 as a midfielder and a centre back before his height (he is six feet two inches tall) caught the attention of managers until one of the games where the team had no goalkeeper and he volunteered.

He said: “I always used to go in goal at school break time so there was definitely something in me that wanted to do it and when I started playing for junior teams in that position it just came naturally. Those break time games were good training for the real thing because there were hard shots coming at you from all angles.”

James grew up an admirer of Manchester United and inevitably one of his idols was Peter Schmeichel. He said: “I always based my goalkeeping style on him, trying to be as big as I could between the posts, concentrating on shot stopping, being commanding and unfortunately for my team mates being very vocal during the game.

“I always made everyone know I was on the pitch during every game I played in.”

His favourite memory from the FA Cup was the 1999 semi final replay Arsenal v Manchester United at Villa Park when Schmeichel saved a penalty fro Dennis Bergkamp and moments later Ryan Giggs ran through the whole of the Arsenal defence and smashed the ball into the net.

“From that moment I believed goalkeepers could also win games because if the penalty wasn’t saved, United wouldn’t have gone on to win the FA Cup let alone the treble that year.”

Sadly there was no fairytale result for the big man when he led Dudley Town out in the FA Cup that day against Drayton, but when they travel to Worcester tomorrow for their first FA Cup game in nine years, he will be wishing them the best and maybe looking back again to the day where his goalkeeping and leadership qualities earned him a cherished life memory.

n Northern One Midlands clubs Lye Town and Walsall Wood are also in FA Cup extra preliminary round action – away at Kidsgrove Athletic and Highgate United, respectively.

There are also FA Cup ties involving sides from the Midland League.

AFC Wulfrunians host Gresley Rovers, Stone Old Alleynians visit Atherstone Town, Bewdley Town take on Daventry Town, Lichfield City travel to Boldmere St Michaels, Darlaston Town welcome Racing Club Warwick, Stourport Swifts play host to Coventry Sphinx, Wolverhampton Casuals are on their travels to Sutton Coldfield Town and Tividale are at home to Rugby Borough.