FA CUP hero Padraig Amond hopes his goal to put Newport County AFC into the third round will help manager Michael Flynn strengthen the squad in January.
Amond headed in a stoppage-time decider at eighth-tier Maldon & Tiptree at the weekend to ensure County made the third round for the fourth time in five years.
The goal guaranteed the club a minimum of £182,000 from this year’s competition and it meant Amond kept up his remarkable record in the world’s oldest cup competition.
The 31-year-old striker has now scored in eight successive rounds in the FA Cup, overtaking legendary frontmen Jeff Astle and Peter Osgood in the records books.
Only Blackpool’s Stan Mortensen is now ahead of Amond in terms of goals scored in successive rounds, but the Irishman is focused on the team.
“As long as we win, I don’t care who scores,” said Amond.
“But I am delighted to keep the record going and I’m looking forward to the next round.
“It’s something I’m really proud of. It’s a good achievement and it’s great to be mentioned with those guys, but it’s all about the team and the club.
“The exposure we’ve got in the cup and the money we’ve made is the most important thing in these games.
“It’s brilliant for the club. It gives us a little bit extra and maybe the gaffer can go out and strengthen in January because we’ve got a few injuries at the minute.”
Flynn says he may even have to come out of retirement at the age of 39 to bolster the squad for tomorrow night’s Leasing.com second-round tie against Brighton & Hove Albion under-21s at the Amex (kick-off 7pm).
“The gaffer might have to play," said Amond. "Hats (assistant manager Wayne Hatswell) might have to play. We might have to get (management consultant) Lennie [Lawrence] to dust off the boots as well!
“It’s about putting a shift in now. It’s about everyone sticking together and going through the pain barrier, like OB (Mark O’Brien) did [at Maldon on Friday].
“He wasn’t really fit to play but he had to do a job and he did it very well.”
Amond knows that he and his fellow strikers will have to be more clinical than they were on Friday of they are to earn positive results in Brighton tonight and at Bradford City in League Two on Saturday.
“Maldon are a decent side and they made us work for the win,” he said.
“But, at the same time, we made our own problems in the first half.
“If we’d scored those chances, we would have won the game easily.
“We know we need to be more clinical. The gaffer says it all the time and we know ourselves it wasn’t good enough.
“But we were very solid and it’s important that we got a clean sheet after all the injuries we had.
“Those games are tricky,” added Amond. “There’s a reason BBC picked it for Friday night prime-time viewing – because [they thought] there was an upset on the cards.
“We’ve been on the other end of it so we know what it’s like and we put in a professional performance.
“It was all about getting into the hat for the next round. That’s the most important thing. We’re delighted to be in the next round.
"We would have taken 1-0 beforehand and we’ll take it and move on.”
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