Members of Stourbridge Cricket Club, an institution founded in 1842, may beg to differ, but the football club’s fans are in no doubt that tomorrow’s FA Cup first-round tie with Walsall, of Coca-Cola League One, will be the biggest game to grace the War Memorial Athletic Ground in the glass-blowing quarter of the Black Country.

Gary Hackett’s team gleaned a little reflected glory when Burton Albion, in between their FA Cup games with Manchester United four years ago, played a Birmingham Senior Cup tie at the ground, Nigel Clough featuring at left back for the side who were then giants of the Conference.

But even the promotion play-offs triumph over Leamington 18 months ago may be overshadowed tomorrow in a derby that is more prestigious than even the Welsh Cup game with Cardiff City in April 1974, when a record crowd of 5,726 spilt over on to the adjacent cricket strip.

Worcestershire have played county cricket on the square that opens up a penalty kick away from the football pitch at what is now a designated three-sided ground. The football club’s progress was stymied at the start of this decade, when successive Midlands Alliance title triumphs went unrewarded because one side of the ground was open to the elements — and to any belated square cuts. However, a rationalisation of stadium requirements has allowed Stourbridge to flourish and, after climbing two divisions over the past four years to reach the Zamaretto League premier division, they have earned their tilt at national recognition with this foray into football’s oldest knockout competition.

To place their achievement in context, it is 11 years since Stourbridge, a small industrial town ten miles southwest of Walsall, reached the fourth qualifying round. Listing the six games required to advance to this stage, the souvenir mugs and T-shirts on sale celebrate the club’s baptism in the FA Cup proper: “133 years — and well worth the wait”.

The squad, who earn about £1,000 a week between them, did not negotiate Cup bonuses in the summer. Hackett is confident, however, that the players’ pool may take them farther than Blackpool this year. “There is talk of Magaluf,” the manager said yesterday.

The club’s prize money of just under £30,000 has been bitten into by the extra stand, the Portaloos and the security gates that have been put up for a game bizarrely ignored for live television. “Perhaps you have to live round these parts to understand what this game’s about,” Nigel Gregg, committee member, programme contributor and toilet cleaner, said. “We’ve even had to open the bottom turnstiles for the first time in 20 years.”

With no call for floodlights, the game’s 1pm kick-off will at least allow ITV to get well-lit footage for its highlights programme. Hackett, in his seventh season as manager, knows how it feels to be a small-screen hero after his feats for Shrewsbury Town a quarter of a century ago. So good was the goal he scored in a fourth-round victory over Ipswich Town that the BBC retained it as part of its opening sequence for Grandstand.

“I was very lucky,” Hackett recalled yesterday as he surveyed the extra seating that has been installed behind one goal to take the capacity over 2,000. “In my first year at Shrewsbury we had a very good Cup run. We played Ipswich in the fourth round and the Match of the Day cameras were there. The camera was in the right place and I scored a great goal.

“I cut in from the left-hand side, inside George Burley, past John Wark and then curled a shot with my right foot into the top corner past Paul Cooper. We beat them 2-0 and went on to play Everton, who ended up winning the competition. It’s my claim to fame that I was on the Grandstand opening sequence sandwiched between Ballesteros and McEnroe — even if nobody would have any idea who that guy was in the middle clip.”

Hackett hopes that his moment of fame, at the outset of a 13-year professional career, will imbibe his players with a belief to compete with a team from four divisions above them. Sean Evans, a goalscoring midfield player who had a brief stint with Manchester United, and Ryan Rowe, the striker who tarmacs roads when not steamrollering defences, will look to add to their prolific contributions to this run.

“I’m not saying I’m an inspiration, but it just goes to show it can happen to anyone,” Hackett said. “If anything positive happens on Saturday, I doubt there’ll be a bigger day in the club’s history.”

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