Pr: Abbey Hey vs Hall Road Rangers

Hall Road Rangers are in FA Vase action on Saturday as they travel to Gorton, a suburb of Manchester, to take on Abbey Hey FC in a Second Qualifying Round tie at the Abbey Stadium. Rangers come into this game with a good amount of confidence after Tuesday night’s victory against Shirebrook Town. Abbey Hey sit in 4th place in the North West Counties League Division One South. They’ve won eight of their 11 league games so far this season.

There are a number of dangers within the Abbey Hey ranks who could cause potential issues for the Hall Road defence. Ben Halfacre is Abbey Hey’s top scorer with eight goals so far this season, Dylan Fitzgerald possesses six goals to his name, Jordan Lazenbury has five goals and Rhys Clooney and Thomas Murray both have three goals.

The sides have come against each other before in this competition which occurred back in the 2002/03 season. This coincided with Abbey Hey’s best FA Vase run as they reached the Third Round Proper. They picked up wins against Maltby Main, Liversedge and Hall Road before losing out to Fleetwood Town.

Rangers joint boss Dave Ricardo is expecting a difficult test this weekend.

“It’s going to be a hard game on Saturday in the Vase against Abbey Hey as they’ve been in good form. They lost at the weekend but they won five or six on the bounce before that so it’s going to be tough.

It’s a case of we just need to get that belief and that right kind of work ethic and intelligence in our game for the majority.

On Tuesday night, we had that for about 60% of the game. We need to take that to 70%, 80% and 90%. You’re never going to have that all game as no team does. We’ve just got to maximise what we’ve got and add to it and then we’ll be okay” he said.

Report by: Oliver Harsley