SULLY Sports FC player-coach Mike Fowler has spoken of his pride in the club’s efforts this season - ahead of the FAW Trophy final on Saturday.

The fomer Crystal Palace player, who signed for Sully in August, will - alongside manager Jimmy Blackie - try and co-ordinate an upset when they face Welsh Alliance side Holyhead Hotspur FC in Aberystwyth.

Sports booked their place in the final with a dramatic extra-time 3-2 semi-final victory over another Welsh Alliance team Pwllheli, to become the first side from the South Wales Senior League to reach the last two.

And while they will certainly be the underdogs against a side who play in a league two tiers higher, Fowler said the occasion was ‘set up for Sully to ruin the party’.

“Holyhead are a strong North Wales outfit, who are very direct with a danger man up top,” said Barry-born Fowler, who also runs his soccer school - Mike Fowler Soccer Skills - from the club in Sully.

“We will be the underdogs, but if we play to our capabilities we can beat anyone - as we proved in the semi.

“Our aim is to prove everyone wrong, as we have all season.”

Sully also sit ten points clear at the top of the South Wales Senior League, with 20 wins in 26 matches and 95 goals scored, and are almost certain of a place in the play-off game against the winners of the South Wales Amateur League, with Welsh League status up for grabs. Three points from their remaining four league games will see them into that play-off.

Fowler said the season had already proved a success far beyond his expectations, but the entire campaign would now be measured on the FAW final and league play-off.

“We started poorly with one win in our first six games, but since then we have gone unbeaten,” said the former Newport County star.

“If I’m honest, I had a target of two or three years before I expected to reach the point where we are now.

"But the whole club has bought into the ethos Jimmy and I have tried to establish, and after we found our feet and got together a solid 16, we have gone from strength to strength.

“That is as much about the people off the pitch as those on it," he added.

"Without the likes of club chairman Steve Greenslade, secretary Tony Scrivens and treasurer Richard Anderton, we could never have achieved this.

"They are the backbone of the club and are there every day, preparing and getting things ready. Our success is for them more than anyone.

“But that said, the measure of everything we have done this season will be decided by two massive matches.

"We will probably be underdogs in the league play-off as well, but we will treat that the same as the final and go out to play our game.”

More than 150 people are expected to travel up to Aberystwyth for the game, with junior Sully teams facing equivalent age sides from Holyhead as a pre-match 'curtain-raiser'.

A few seats are still available on the travelling coaches. For more information contact club secretary Tony Scrivens on 029 2053 0861.

The FAW Trophy Final will be held at Park Avenue, Aberystwyth on Saturday (March 14). Kick-off is 2.30pm.