WORCESTER City are hoping their FA Cup victory over Coventry Sphinx will set them on the road to more success in the competition this season.

Carl Heeley’s side defeated Coventry Sphinx 4-0 at Aggborough to book their place in today’s draw for the third qualifying round.

Having already banked £4,500 for Saturday’s triumph, it has also given the Skrill North club another opportunity to swell the coffers.

“I don’t understand why people say negative things about the FA Cup,” manager Heeley said. “I’ve had some good cup runs myself and I’ve been on the end of some shocks but that’s the magic of the FA Cup, it’s one on its own and it’s massive financially, we can’t turn away from that.

“We just need another nice draw now and we can’t wait for it.”

Goals from Richard Taundry, debutant Niall Thompson, Daniel Nti and birthday boy James Lemon saw off the resistance of Coventry, who had Kyle Baxter sent off in the second-half.

Heeley said: “I wanted a professional performance and in the end we got that.

“That’s five games unbeaten and four clean-sheets in five games. You’ve got to be solid defensively and stop the opposition scoring and we’ve done that. We’ve got a nice little roll going.

“It’s good to get up and running in the FA Cup because it’s a different kind of pressure — it’s do or die. You lose one game, you’re out, so we were on a hiding to nothing but we’ve done a job and got through.

“It doesn’t really matter about whether it flattered us or not or what the performance was like, it was about getting through to the next round and nothing else mattered.

“They had nothing to lose and the pressure was all on us, we had to go and win the game.

“As it opened up at the end, I thought we looked quite menacing when we went forward, were clinical when we took our chances and won the game convincingly in the end. I thought we scored some very good goals.”

Lemmon, part of the club’s academy, marked his 18th birthday by scoring the fourth goal with his first touches of the ball after coming on as a late substitute.

The City boss added: “We’ve had him training with us for a few months and we’ve been impressed with him.

“He’s 18, made his first team debut wearing number 18 and he got himself a goal.

“He’s buzzing and I’m chuffed to bits for the lad.”