Horsham FC boss Di Paola: Dorking FA Cup clash shows just how far we've come as a football club

That’s the view of manager Dominic Di Paola, as Horsham gear up to host the National League outfit this Saturday.

The clash with Wanderers is Horsham’s second fourth qualifying round tie in three years, yet the Hornets had previously not reached the fourth qualifying round since their historic FA Cup run in 2007-08.

Di Paola said: “We’re looking forward to it. There’s going to be a big, big crowd and it’ll be a big game for everyone at the club. It just shows as a football club how far we’ve come, that we’ve had two fourth round qualifiers in two years.

“We’ve had FA Cup runs, League Cup wins, play-off pushes. Every season there are things going on at the moment, so it’s a good time to be a Horsham supporter.

“But it’s a tough game and we know that. We’re playing an excellent side, but we have to embrace it. We have to be at our best and see where that takes us.”

Tickets for the Dorking clash went on general sale at 6pm on Saturday - but it took just three hours for the club to announce tickets had officially sold out.

Di Paola said the appetite from locals to attend this weekend’s cup clash showed Horsham’s ‘massive potential’ as a club - with the boss revealing he had been inundated with requests for tickets.

He said: “We’re growing all the time as a football club. There’s massive potential. I think we would have got another 1,500 tickets sold if we were allowed to have a bigger capacity!

“As far as I’m aware, when the club built the ground they were expecting crowds of around 400, so where we are now is unprecedented. If you look at the history of the club, I don’t think they were getting those sorts of crowds unless it was a huge game.

“We’ve had two sell-outs in three years, we’ve had numerous crowds of well over 1,000. I’ve had so many people ask me for tickets, I’ve just had to say I’ve got none!

“Hopefully we do ourselves justice on Saturday and put in a good performance.”