Salford City FC are through to the Third Qualifying Round of the FA Cup after they saw off Tameside’s Curzon Ashton at Moor Lane.
In front of a 309 crowd at Moor Lane Danny Webber fired the Ammies through to the next stage of the most dramatic cup in English football.
But they had to come from a goal behind against their NPL Premier League opponents.
Without a home win this season after last year’s promotion joy, Salford have looked wobbly at the back at times.
And it was a mistake by captain Chris Lynch in the 16th minute which led to Curzon’s opening goal.
With his back to the forwards bearing down on his position, Lynch cut a short back-pass to keeper Jay Lynch, which bobbled on the turf and rolled kindly at the feet of striker Warburton, who slammed a cool finish past the Salford keeper from the 18-yard line.
It was Webber to the rescue just six minutes later.
With Steve O’Halloran making good progress down the left, Danny met a whipped cross with a bullet of a header past Hakan Burton to level the scores.
There was heartbreak for Tunji Moses, who limped off with a knee injury, but his replacement James Poole would set up Webber for the matchwinner on 39 minutes.
Poole slipped into the penalty area after some slick passing play by Salford, and made enough room to flick a pass to the striker who batted away the close attention of the Curzon defence before turning on a sixpence to lift a rising shot above the grounded keeper Burton and into the net.
The Ammies closed down Curzon’s attempts to attack back in the second half, without parking the bus and with some classy moves right from the back.
The win means Salford pick up an extra £4,500 in prize money, with pride and a pot of £7,500 at stake for in the next qualifying round on 10 October.
Just one more win will see them through the First Round proper, going up against League One and Two sides for FA Cup glory.
And the fact that Webber has hit a rich vein of form will be manna from heaven for Salford.
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With thanks to Andy Giblin
All pictures by Charlotte Tattersall
