THE odds might be stacked against a Worcester City victory over Southport tomorrow (3pm), but joint-manager Carl Heeley said the chance to pull off a shock result was something his side craved.

The Blue and Whites make the long journey north to face a rejuvenated Vanarama National League outfit, who are expected to seal their place in the second round of the FA Trophy.

However, as recent history suggests, City are a difficult team to write off.

Coventry City, Gateshead and Solihull Moors have all been knocked out by Worcester in the FA Cup over the last two seasons.

And Heeley says his players are now eager to claim another scalp as they gear up to take on Southport, who have won three out of their last four league games to move out of the drop zone.

“Southport have picked up in form,” he said. “They had a good result on Tuesday off the back of a win on Saturday, so it’s going to be tough.

“We are going to be underdogs again against a side who are full-time and in the division above, but we have been underdogs on a number of occasions and have had decent results, so we are hoping to try and get another one.

“We want to go as far as we can in this competition. The financial rewards might not be as great as the FA Cup but you can win prize money and you also have that carrot at the end of potentially getting to a final at Wembley — and that’s everybody’s dream.”

Worcester will go into the clash at Haig Avenue off the back of a disappointing 3-0 league defeat to Tamworth last Saturday but Heeley insisted they have put that result behind them.

“You can be down on a Saturday and maybe on a Sunday but once you get back to training on a Tuesday night we talk about what we did wrong and what we can do to try and correct it for the next game, so the players are fine,” said Heeley.

He looks set to be without winger Ashley Vincent, who is recovering from a virus.

Heeley said: “You have got to move on in football. You can’t dwell on things you can’t affect anymore. We are better than we were at the start of the season. Just because we lost one game of football we shouldn’t go totally back to the drawing board.

“It is a setback but if we can take three wins out of four throughout the campaign, we will be winning leagues.

“In this little spell, we have done OK, so we have got to try and bounce back against Southport.”

Full-back Tyler Weir will serve a one-match ban for his red card at Tamworth when City host Gainsborough Trinity in the league on Saturday, December 19.