EVEN though Hamworthy Recreation are flying high in the Wessex Division One table, they would not have expected to be catching a plane in order to play a football match this season.

But they will be doing exactly that this weekend, when they travel to the Channel Island of Jersey to play a fourth round FA Vase clash with Jersey Bulls.

Rec’s maiden run in the competition have seen the 10th tier outfit win five games already, starting at the very beginning of the Vase with the first qualifying round.

Trips to Gloucestershire and Somerset followed, but now the competition takes Rec out of England to face Jersey.

Whilst Rec will be hoping that they get to experience a once in a lifetime experience by reaching the final of the competition at Wembley in May, joint manager Kirk Grice spoke about the excitement of the “odd” one-off fixture with Jersey, which will be memorable in its own right.

Grice told the Daily Echo: “It's been an odd situation.

“Obviously not many of us have ever had to get a flight to a football match, but there’s a bit of excitement around it.

“It's going to be a long, long day though.

“So we're leaving at half six in the morning and then we'll be back to the club round about 7:30pm.

“But that's where the preparation will come into play.

“Luckily, we've got a few hours before when we arrive there, to settle, stretch our legs, try and relax.

“It's all quite exciting, obviously.

“But a few people – for example, Wayne (Smith), the joint manager, he’s played out there for another team a few years ago.

“Jamie Moores, he's on the management team, he's been out there, he's played for Dorset there.

“It is an odd one.

“Especially considering mostly the logistics of getting there and back for a game of football.

“We know how hard it is getting to Bridport on a Tuesday night for a Dorset Cup match!

“It’s an exciting fixture. Obviously our first year in the Vase.

“We always wanted to have quite a good run, but it's gone better than expected so far.

“It's one of those things - we've played a couple of teams from a higher division and we've played a couple from step six.

“So it's not as if we've had an easy draw, such as they're all one-off games.

“In football, anything can happen on the day.

“We're going into this one as underdogs, but we're going to plan and prepare for it.

“Whatever happens on the day, happens on the day.

“We’ve had a few guys have good runs in the Vase before with Christchurch, and New Milton.

“Brian Foulger, he's moved down from Leighton Buzzard, but he had a decent run with them in the Vase as well when he was up there.

“Wayne was with Christchurch when they had good run in the Vase and in the Cup.

“So although it's new for the club, we’ve got experience of quite decent runs.”

Rec have trained as usual in the build up to the fixture, with two midweek sessions following their 2-1 win over Clanfield last Saturday.

But Grice admitted that the logistics of travelling via plane was something he had not encountered before as a football manager.

Recreation will leave their Magna Road base at 6:30am in order to fly from Southampton Airport at 8:20am, with kick-off on the Channel Island at 1pm.

“The second we found out were through, we were contacted by Jersey,” he continued.

“So Jersey obviously have to do this week in, week out with being in the Combined Counties League.

“So, they got in contact with us and got a hold of our secretary and chairman and just explained how it works.

“They supply us with 25 seats on the plane, they have to cover that.

“We've got to fly out from Southampton Saturday morning, then we're returning back at 6.30pm.

“They’ve been so accommodating with everything.

“They're picking us up, they're putting a coach on.

“When we get to the other side they'll take us to their ground.

“They're then going to put on pre-match food for us.

“We're going to play the game at 1pm, then we get post-match food and then they ferry us back to the airport.”

With travel preparations already sorted, Grice and Rec’s focus is now completely on winning the tie.

Jersey currently ply their trade in the Combined Counties League Premier Division South, the tier above Rec, with Grice fully aware of the challenge that awaits his side.

“Since it's just one game, we've tried to find out as much information as we can on them.

“They've got quite a big social media platform on YouTube and stuff, but they don't give too much away.

“So from a football perspective, it's all been quite normal.

“We do our homework, we try and get as much information as we can on them.

“Then we can see what kind of game plan we can put together.

“We train twice a week.

“So we trained on playing on Tuesday and did some bits.

"And then we're training (Thursday) just to run through a few more bits and pieces up to the game.

“But looking safe. We've done all the other stuff.”