Young star gets taste of FA cup
By Tyler Lloyd
The magic of the FA cup is a phrase that goes round often in English football, with giant killings, non-league clubs going on cup runs and being the oldest tournament in world football, this cup certainly lives up to the famous saying.
For one player the dream has only just begun, Southern League Division one club Kidlington have made it into the second preliminary rounds of the FA cup and for one of their youth players the dream has just begun.
Teenager Harry Sturgess will be in the matchday squad for Kidlington’s next FA Cup qualifying game, when being asked how he feels on the call up, he said, “Getting the call up to Kidlington’s first team in the FA cup is a big achievement for me”. He continues, “I’ve always wanted to be involved in an FA cup game and there’s only a selected amount of people who can say they’ve been involved in this cup”.
"File:The FA Cup Trophy.jpg" by Carlos yo is licensed with CC BY-SA 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Despite this being an unbelievable first step into first team football, Sturgess, already has his attention on the future at the club and what his plans are in the future. He mentions, “It’s not just about the FA cup game as, we realistically won’t go too far in it. So, for me it’s more about impressing the managers and breaking into the first team and then becoming a regular by getting in the starting line-up”.
A coach of Harry Sturgess said that “Harry has done really well since he’s come to the club, first and foremost he impressed in pre-season, and it was clear that he was going to make our team stronger”.
There, has been success stories within this team as, a former player Lewis Coyle is now a regular starter for Oxford City, playing in the National League South, the sixth tier of the English football league system. Also, Harry Whitehead, a former first team player who is on a two-year scholarship over in America. So, this does show good signs that the club are generating top quality players and Sturgess can follow in the footsteps of his former teammates to have a successful career.
Harry Sturgess also opened up on how far he feels he can go in his career, “For the future, I just want to play football for as long as I can and just keep working my way up and see how high of a standard I can reach, and just take every bit of experience from the game time with the first team and just use that to help me develop as a player.
For Sturgess, this is the start of what could be an incredible footballing journey, and to be playing in the FA Cup is an elite platform to show off his capability and talents, and even follow in the same footsteps as the likes of Leicester City’s Jamie Vardy and ex Arsenal forward Ian Wright. Who both had similar success stories from non-league football.