Roy Essandoh believes his new club have the same fighting spirit as last season's FA Cup semi-finalists Wycombe Wanderers.

As the Bees go into this Saturday's game against Havant & Waterlooville, the tall striker told of the desire his team-mates are showing prior to the crunch game.

"The lads are definitely up for it. If we play the way we did against Bournemouth then we can beat anyone. The spirit among the lads is great and everyone gets on with each other, in that respect it's not too dissimilar to when I was at Wycombe," he said.

This will only be the big front man's third FA Cup tie but after scoring that famous winning goal against Leicester City and then playing against the mighty Liverpool at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, he has a Cup pedigree to be proud of.

He said: "It was a dream to score that goal last season and the feeling it gave me was unbelievable. It was something I have always wanted to do and to score on such a big stage was fantastic."

But Essandoh issued a word of caution ahead of the tie against Dr Martens high-flyers Havant: "You cannot take anything for granted in this. We have to get this game out of the way first and then hopefully we can go on a run.

"Everybody here would like us to go back up and hopefully we can, but it would be nice to score on Saturday and go through to the next round."

However, Barnet will be in for a tough game in Hampshire as Havant & Waterlooville top the Dr Martens Premier Division and it wasn't until last weekend that they suffered their first league defeat of the season, 2-1 at Hednesford.

Former Barnet defenders Liam Daish and Shaun Gale provide the backbone to their team and Gale is looking forward to the clash: "I am looking forward to playing against Barnet.

"We've plenty of experience in our side, and we'll make it tough for them," he said.

Gale played 114 Football League games for Barnet before moving on to their Third Division rivals Exeter for £10,000, making 70 League appearances there.

Daish, 33, had a spell on loan with Barnet when Barry Fry was in charge. He later played for Birmingham under Fry, and Coventry City, gaining Republic of Ireland international honours.

October 24, 2001 17:28

KEVIN BURCHALL