Table-toppers Woking are next challenge for Johnson

TORQUAY UNITED

Gulls manager Gary Johnson has been stressing to his players that the FA Cup stroll against Lymington Town bore no resemblance to the test which awaits his players when Woking come to Plainmoor this Saturday, and with good reason.

Alan Dowson's Cards are top of the table, with seven wins from their opening ten matches and, like Torquay, are intent on an immediate 'bounce back' promotion after being relegated last season.

A couple of weeks ago Saturday's game would have featured two managers who know each other very well.

Dowson, 48, and former Gulls boss Gary Owers, 49, were both born in Gateshead and have crossed swords several times.

Now Dowson, who played for Bradford City and Darlington, faces Johnson in the latest chapter of a managerial career that has taken in Walton & Hersham, seven years at Kingstonian and four with Hampton & Richmond.

Woking, who went down after a year under the inexper- ienced Anthony Limbrick, head-hunted him in May after he had led Surrey rivals Hampton to the NL South Play-Off Final, and he promptly took half-a-dozen of Hampton's players with him to the Kingfield.

One of them was former Aldershot youngster Joshua Casey, an attacking full-back with an educated left foot.

Casey's link with new loan centre-forward Harvey Brad- bury – picture Kevin Nicholson and Tim Sills for the Gulls a few years back – is developing nicely, and there is quality on the wing with former Hull City player Greg Luer.

Bradbury, the son of former Portsmouth striker and now Havant & Waterlooville manager Lee Bradbury, is on loan from Oxford United after starting the season with Hungerford.

He scored a hat-trick in the Cards' 4-0 FA Cup win over Tooting & Mitcham, and he must be decent given that more experienced men like Jake Hyde (Barnet, York) and ex-Gulls striker Duane Ofori-Acheampong (Dover, Dartford) found themselves on the bench last weekend.

So did pacy midfielder Kane Ferdinand, a match winner on his day with experience at Southend, Peterborough and Dagenham to his credit.