Ladies draw Preston NE at home in FA Women's Cup

Spurs Ladies have been handed a home tie against fellow FA Women's Premier League side Preston North End in the fourth round of the FA Women's Cup.

Preston NE are currently seventh of 12 in the Northern Division of the FAWPL having won, drawn and lost four of their 12 matches.

They beat Nottingham Forest - also in the FAWPL Northern Division - in the third round on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Spurs sit sixth in the Southern Division and very much in the title race with seven wins in 12 so far.

The tie will take place at Ware FC on Sunday, February 1 - just three days after the ladies play in the semi-final of the Ryman Women's Cup against Gillingham (Thursday, January 29), also at Ware FC.

"It's made it quite a special few days for us," said manager Karen Hills.

"Preston will be at a similar level to us. The only comparison we've got is when we played Sheffield FC in the League Cup at the start of the season and narrowly lost 1-0 and Preston managed to pick up a 2-2 draw against them. Sheffield have only dropped points in two games, one against Preston, so that shows they will be a competitive team.

"The important thing is that we're at home again and we're all looking forward to it."

Karen went through all the emotions as her team dominated against Copsewood Coventry on Sunday but despite creating chance after chance after chance, found themselves 1-0 down at half-time.

Kate O'Leary levelled in the second half, Copsewood Coventry held on for extra time and were eventually undone by Wendy Martin's spectacular strike.

"I suppose you could say that we got the job done in the end but we certainly made hard work of it!" added Karen.

"Credit to Copsewood Coventry, they kept going, but on another day it would have been a comfortable win for us.

"The most important thing was to get through, we did that and now we look ahead to the next one."

Spurs Ladies face another cracker this weekend with a trip to FAWPL South leaders Brighton.