Matchday Preview – Hartpury – FA Trophy 2nd Round Qualifying
By Duncan Gardner
This season in many ways the Terras have been plotting a course through uncharted waters and this weekend is no different as we face Hartpury at home in what is technically an away fixture!
We have never faced our visitors before today and that is no surprise as the team only formed six years ago in the Herefordshire county league (despite being situated in Gloucestershire)! They are nicknamed “The Acorns” (from which mighty oaks do of course grow) and this sapling club has shot up rapidly, securing consecutive promotions and averaging almost 100 goals in their last four campaigns!
Impressive for such a new club but then they are related to Hartpury University who specialise in coaching future sports stars. In fact two former Weymouth players honed their skills on their campus grounds…although neither made a massive impact for the Terras – Lewis Tasker played 28 times from 2010-12 and James Nortei only 9 times over the same period.
Back to the FA Trophy and, despite having already progressed through one round to get here, this is still an unusually early stage for the club! The structure of the competition has changed over the years but in this round there are still 240 teams left who can win it – that is more than the number when we have ENTERED in any of the previous 57 seasons!
Success in this competition has often been fleeting for the Terras – in fact we have only progressed through two rounds once in the last 8 campaigns – than was in 2024/25 when we vanquished Weston-super-Mare then Yeovil before narrowly losing to Boreham Wood. In 2018/19 we made it through 4 rounds but only “won” 3 times, Needham Market rewarding us a walkover into the last 32 as they elected not travel from Suffolk!
Win this weekend and that will be 4 major cup competition victories already this season – a feat last achieved in 2024/25. However we have never won that many rounds before October in our history!
Can the Terras add to their historic start to the season by knocking off the Acorns or will they prove a hard nut to crack?
