Fans get ready for Blyth Spartans FA Cup clash

Blyth Spartans chairman Tony Platten believes Blackburn's players will not know what to expect when they face his side in the FA Cup third round. The Blue Square North strugglers performed heroics to see off Shrewsbury and Bournemouth to secure a tie with Sam Allardyce's side. On paper the Premier League side should win at a canter, but Platten is hoping a cauldron of noise inside Blyth's Croft Park ground could inspire one of the greatest FA Cup shocks of all time. He said: "The Blackburn players won't know what to expect with a tight little ground, packed to the rafters, a pitch that is not to Premier League standard and a changing room that isn't anywhere near the standard of the Premier League's palatial changing rooms. "All things being equal, we've got a great chance. Looking at the teams on paper, Blackburn should win hands down but this is the FA Cup after all and it's 11 players against 11 players and we've always got a chance." When Platten arrived at Blyth in 2001 the club were riddled with debt and close to going out of business. Nearly eight years later and Spartans are about to host a multi-million pound Blackburn side in the biggest game in the club's history. Blyth got to the fifth round of the FA Cup in 1978 before losing to Wrexham in a replay at Newcastle's St James' Park. However, Platten insists the board never considered staging the game elsewhere this time around and believes it is testament to how far the club have come that they will be playing the game at their compact Croft Park ground. He added: "It's been a phenomenal effort to get the ground ready and we never considered staging the game at St James' Park. "We have done a lot of work on the ground in the last six years and we passed all the tests with flying colours."

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ITN | January 5, 2009

Tags:. .allardyces. .cauldron. .rafters. .wrexham. .shrewsbury