No 2 Larry Chambers has urged AFC Telford United to make life easier for themselves after seeing them squeeze past Corby with a 3-2 victory in the FA Cup.

A Terry Fearns hat-trick was enough for the Bucks, who will pocket £4,500 in prize money for their victory and are in the draw for the third qualifying round for the first time in their short history.

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But Chambers, the assistant to boss Rob Smith, was frustrated with the way the BGB Southern League side were allowed to stay in contention.

“The objective was to be in the draw today and it’s the first time since myself and Rob have been at the club that we have won an FA Cup game so, from that point of view, it was a good day,” he said.

“I thought we could have made it a lot more comfortable than we did, though.

“We played some great stuff to come back into the game after they went ahead, and we probably could have had a few more goals.

“We let them back into it by giving away a stupid free-kick and that was a cardinal sin. Okay, you’ve got to say it was a wicked deflection but it was an unnecessary free-kick.”

Telford won with a new-look 4-4-2 formation, but Chambers suggested that is unlikely to become a regular feature just yet.

“I still don’t think that, week-in-week-out, we’ve got the right personnel to play 4-4-2 because you need two naturally wide midfield players,” he insisted.

“But, based on the reports we’d had on Corby, we thought it was the right decision.”

Meanwhile, midfielder Gary Fitzpatrick turned out for Rushall Olympic on Saturday and defender Asa Charlton for Hednesford – though Chambers revealed both had the option to be on the Telford bench, with up to seven substitutes allowed in the FA Cup.

“We gave them the choice to stay with us on Saturday and they could have been on the bench, but they chose to go out and get games,” he added.

By Chris Hudson