FA Cup trip to Boro will be magic for Matt

The Hastings United left-back, who lives in Worthing and has played for Worthing FC, is hoping they can continue their magical, record-breaking FA Cup campaign beyond the third round, in which they face the Championship side at the weekend.

The defender netted a penalty in the Ryman League Premier Division outfit’s televised spot-kick victory in the previous round over Conference North side Harrogate in a replay.

Despite being just 20, Whitehead already has an impressive footballing CV, having played at Wembley for England Schools and he is hoping to add a victory at The Riverside to that list.

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He said: “It’s not what you expect playing football at this level, something that may happen once in your career, twice if you are very lucky. All of us at Hastings are very lucky and we put in the hard work to get where we wanted and we now have a dream tie away to Middlesbrough.

“I’ve played at Wembley in front of 10,000, but I am hoping there will be slightly more there and the atmosphere will be a bit better.

“Playing in front of 10,000 in a 90,000 stadium is a bit like an ant in a nest and not too much atmosphere, but I am hoping, maybe if we get 10,000 to 15,000, it’ll be a great one. We have already sold 1,000 tickets and if we can sell out our allocation and get all our fans in, it will be excellent.”

The left-back is not planning on heading to Boro just for the experience and said: “To be honest, straight away people have downed our chances and if only three, four or five of us go there thinking we have a chance, it won’t happen.

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“If eight, nine or 10 of us think we can get something there, we have a chance.

“You can’t go anywhere thinking like that (to lose), even Manchester United, else you will get beat.

“So we aren’t looking at it like that, whatsoever.”