With the Eagles' Staffordshire FA Senior Cup tie now less than twenty four hours away, this is an opportunity to look back to the last time the clubs met. We have to go back to 16. October 2007 in the Senior Cup, Eccleshall playing in the competition for the first time as clubs at our level were 'promoted' to this from the Staffs FA Vase. We are grateful to our former programme editor, Richard Marsh and Jim Hannah from the Sentinel for providing some detail about the game and Jim in particular for a match report from the archives. The report went as follows:

"The pre-match headlines had centred around the Thorley brothers at Pershall Park - and it was Eccleshall's Jack who claimed bragging rights over sibling Tom as a young Stoke City were beaten 3-1. City's youth team coach Adrian Pennock selected from the same squad that had lost to 2-1 to their Manchester United youth rivals at the weekend, while Eccleshall boss Mark Askey opted to play Dwayne Spence up front, leaving club legend Russell Dematteo on the bench following his recent red card against New Mills.

After Stoke's youngsters narrowly lost to their Manchester United counterparts at the weekend, they were confident of turning over Eccleshall in the Staffs. Senior Cup. However, the home team had different ideas. The decision to play Spence immediately paid dividends as he fired Eccleshall into a ninth minute lead. Jimmy Dunn put a delightful through ball into the striker's path and, after rounding City keeper Danzelle St Louis Hamilton, he tapped into the net. Stoke captain Mark Grocott was doing his best to spur on his side by putting in some crunching tackles in the centre of the park, but Eccleshall doubled their lead in the 23rd minute. A fizzing drive from Dunn evaded Spence in the centre, but Matt Mills, on the right wing, made no mistake.

Eccleshall continued to dominate and it was no surprise to see them move 3-0 ahead. A long ball from the right saw a lack of communication between Stoke's St Louis Hamilton and Andy Owens, which allowed Spence to nip in and head his second goal of the evening on the stroke of half time.

Dean McCormick had a couple of efforts comfortably saved by home keeper Barry Weston in the second half, but City never showed any signs of launching a recovery mission. Both wingers - Lathan Forrester and Salif Diao - were the best performers for Stoke, but it was Jimmy Phillips who scored the best goal of the game on 75 minutes. His curling effort from 30 yards gave Weston no chance, but it was no more than a consolation.

Eccleshall: Weston, Brunt, J Thorley, Gunnell, Mapperson, Stevens (c), Mills, Warrender, Spence, Dunn, Williams.
Subs: Johnson, Kerrigan, Dematteo, Wilshaw, Brice.

Stoke City: St Louis Hamilton, Keys, Watson, T Thorley, Parsons, Owens, Phillips, Grocott (c), McCormick, Diao, Forrester.
Subs: McDonald, Harrison, Ryan.

Attendance: 219

Eccleshall went on to defeat Port Vale in the next round before losing to Rocester in the semi-finals at Pershall Park - the Rocester winner coming from a late penalty. The following season, all clubs at our level were put back in the Staffordshire FA Vase.

As we look forward to tomorrow evening's game, good luck to Kyle, Craig, Colin and all the Eagles players in what we are sure will be a tough but entertaining match involving two competitive teams. Being a cup tie, anything can happen - look what happened back in 2007!