BOTH Stoke Gabriel & Torbay Police and Ivybridge Town will be putting league football to one side this weekend as they run out in the FA Vase once again.

Starting with Stoke and they made light work of their first qualifying round match, beating St. Day 5-0 south of the border.

Their reward for that victory is a much sterner test in the form of Helston Athletic- St. Day are bringing up the rear in the SW Peninsula League West Division without a single point to their name, whilst Helston have started well at a higher level.

The Blues have won five, drawn once and lost four of their opening 10 outings in the Western League, earning them eighth place in the table at the time of writing.

With Stoke sixth in the league below, this won’t be easy for them but Matt Hayden and Sam Biscoe’s side have home advantage, welcoming the Cornish outfit to Broadley Lane on Saturday.

They went flying out of the blocks last month, scoring 16 goals across their first four games, but the Bees have faltered recently, recent wins over Torridgeside AFC and Okehampton Argyle being followed up by dropped points.

In their latest outing, off the back of beating Argyle 2-0 at Simmons Park, Stoke shared the spoils with Ilfracombe Town and only just, Sean Adderley coming up with an equaliser right at the death.

Home games have been few and far between for them but they did kickstart the campaign with a 6-1 thrashing of Cullompton Rangers and a 4-0 win against Crediton United, both in the South Hams, so they’ll be hopeful of finding something similar this weekend.

Whilst Stoke are a step six team playing a step five team, Ivybridge Town are a step five team crossing paths with a step six team.

The Greens will be travelling to South Devon to take on Teignmouth AFC at their Coombe Valley home.

Ivybridge have reached the second qualifying round having not kicked a ball just yet. Meanwhile, Teignmouth battled well for a 1-0 win away at Torrington AFC, a real shining light result in an otherwise underwhelming campaign.

They have won two and lost the other six of their league games to date, conceding seven to Bridport FC and five to local rivals Bovey Tracey AFC in recent weeks to make matters worse.

That being said, the aforementioned victory against Torrington showed what they can do on their day, not to mention that they also took all three points away from their visit to Stoke Gabriel at the beginning of the month.

From an Ivybridge point of view, it could go either way after last night’s match to forget.

Conceding three on a few different occasions is one thing but to be hammered 7-1 at Erme Valley was quite the blow. Newquay AFC were the beneficiaries of that one and as they’d only picked up seven points from seven games prior, it really was a shock.

Ben Washam and Brad Gargett, the joint managers of the Greens, will be desperate for a positive response rather than a repeat and whilst they shouldn’t be underestimated, Teignmouth could be the perfect opponents at this point in time.