IT WILL be a case of heading into the unknown for Bradford Park Avenue in tomorrow's Buildbase FA Trophy third qualifying round as they welcome a Stourbridge side who are pushing for promotion into Avenue’s league.

Mark Bower’s men will be perceived as being favourites as a Vanarama National League North side, but the Glassboys are just outside the play-off places in the Evo-Stik League Premier Division and have games in hand because of their cup form.

Bower said: "We are certainly under no illusions because we know this will be a very difficult cup tie.

“We’d like a long run in this competition, as most of the clubs at our level would, but we can’t look past tomorrow at the moment.

"You take each round as it comes in these knockout competitions and our aim is to get into the next one when the National League clubs come in.

“But we’ll have to be at our best if we’re to beat Stourbridge because they’re doing well in their league and are quite high up with games in hand, and they’ve got very good away form.

“I thought that we played well last week and fully merited the win we got against a top side, and we all felt that was just rewards for the form we’ve been in.

"This game is no different as we’ll have to be just as well prepared and just as good on the pitch as we were against Brackley to get another win.”

Avenue consolidated their position in the Vanarama National League North play-off places with a solid 2-0 win over Brackley, who were second.

It is indicative of how keen Bower’s Avenue are to progress in this competition that the manager is demanding the same application.

The game is scheduled to kick off at 3pm after repairs to the floodlight pylon that was blown down by storm Brian towards the end of last month.

The work was completed before last weekend’s league game against Brackley but not in time for that kick-off time to be moved from 1.30pm.

Bower, the former Bantams centre back and skipper, who is in his second managerial role, has been in the game long enough know that tomorrow’s home tie is more about what his side does rather than what the opposition brings.

He said: “We’ve had a few hard games on the trot, and this is another, but we’re in good form and we’re getting more players back every week.

“The squad was a bit stronger last week - Javan Vidal, Matt Hill and Adam Nowakowski all came on from the bench, so they’re fit.

"We only have Danny Boshell sitting out the second game of his three-match suspension, and everyone else is ready to go.

“We should even have Tully back soon (player-coach Ryan Toulson) - he’s back in training and not too far away.”