Maidstone midfielder Bivesh Gurung is on the bench today … but he has a fine tale to tell. In the run-up to today’s game Will Unwin caught up with him.
No one would have expected us to get to the fourth round but we believed in the camp. There is a real buzz going around the place. On Saturday one of the pickup points before the game was the ground and you could see all the people queueing up to buy their tickets for the Ipswich game – the queue did not seem to stop. The support has been surreal.
Always a nail-biting moment for fans of teams facing relative minnows … Ipswich have made 10 changes from the side that drew at Leicester on Monday, including between the sticks. Christian Walton comes in for his third appearance of the season, having featured against AFC Wimbledon in the last round.
Maidstone are captained by Gavin Hoyte, a one-time Arsenal prospect who had spells at Brighton and Watford, and among five changes from last time out they welcome back lively midfielder Jacob Berkeley-Agyepong, the Grenada international who was felled for the decisive penalty that saw off Stevenage in the last round.
Proper! Welcome to what will variously be described as good-old-fashioned and romantic, but what we hope will simply be a cracking game between two sides currently separated by 99 places in the football pyramid.
Ipswich host, in a markedly different era from the Bobby Robson-helmed days that brought them the FA Cup in 1978 and the Uefa Cup three years later. They are, however, second in the Championship and as they chase a second successive promotion, have two 1-1 draws against that division’s leaders Leicester among a run that has only seen them beaten once since 25 November.
Sixth-tier Maidstone have lost to Havant & Waterlooville and Slough this month, but their manager George Elokobi won’t be too worried about that, and will instead be harnessing his experience as a top flight centre-back in pointing out that plenty of sides have shut the Tractor Boys out recently. Ipswich have five wins since the start of December, but also five draws.
Anyway, league form be damned. Cup!
Team news is imminent. Kick-off at Portman Road is at 12.30pm GMT.