Beard dreams of fairy tale cup run to Wembley

Matt Beard says it will be a fairy tale ending to West Ham United’s season if they were to make the FA Cup final today.

The Hammers women travel to Adams Park on Sunday as they battle Reading for a place in the Wembley showpiece.

“Everything’s fine,” he said. “We’ve had good training sessions, good preparation, and just waiting for the rest of the players that have been on international duty to come back. We’ll have them two days leading into the game.

“We’re preparing like we do for any other game, obviously there’s a big prize at the end of this particular game. There will be nerves from us and from Reading. The ambition this year was to obviously establish ourselves in the Women’s Super League first and foremost,” he added. “We were safe by Christmas so we ticked one of the targets off that we set ourselves. 

“Anything can happen in a cup run and we’re delighted that we’re there. It’ll be a fairy tale with how the whole year has panned out if we did get to the FA Cup final. 

“We can look back on the league campaign and obviously the cup campaign, regardless of what happens Sunday, with immense pride with what we’ve achieved so far.

“If you look at the cup games they’re completely different. We’re the underdogs in the game really because they’re at home and they’ve really improved since we played them last as well.  It’s going to be a tough game for us.”

Tickets are available on the game today at Adams Park  Kick Off is 12.30 pm