FA Cup: Kevin Phillips and South Shields seeking big upset

Kevin Phillips won the Premier League Golden Boot in 1999-00 by scoring 30 goals for Sunderland

South Shields are a club with big ambitions and on Saturday they plan on using the FA Cup to showcase exactly how they mean business.

Flying high in the Northern Premier League and managed by a Premier League Golden Boot winner in Sunderland legend Kevin Phillips, the Mariners are determined to move up English football's pyramid.

The seventh-tier club have already come through four rounds of qualifying in the cup to get to the first round for only the second time in their history.

Two years ago they were knocked out by League Two Cheltenham Town in round one.

Now they are preparing to welcome League One side Forest Green Rovers and the live BBC television cameras to the First Cloud Arena.

Located six miles north of Sunderland and nine miles east of Newcastle, South Shields is in the beating heart of the north east, an area where football is in the blood.

And it is no different for the Northern Premier League side. Currently fourth in the table but with multiple games in hand on all the teams above them and with crowds averaging more than 2,000, they are extremely well supported for the level at which they play.

Promotion to the National League North is the immediate aim and something that has been tantalisingly close for a number of years.

They lost in the play-offs in both 2019 and last season, while in 2020, they were 12 points clear at the top when the campaign was curtailed because of Covid-19.

'I always wanted a chance at management'

The club went full-time at the start of last season and chairman Geoff Thompson took the difficult decision to replace long-serving manager Graham Fenton with the man who topped the Premier League goalscoring charts in 1999-00.

Phillips had been a coach at Leicester City, Derby County and Stoke City and had long wanted a chance in management.

But dropping so far down the divisions was something Phillips had not really considered.

"It's football and nothing surprises me," the 49-year-old told BBC Sport.

"I had finished playing and went straight into coaching at three great clubs. But then you're out of work, bar some media stuff.

"The phone rings and you think it'll be an EFL or maybe a Premier League club but you have to realise that so many people want one of these jobs.

"I always wanted a chance at management but to manage at this level was maybe not something I had dreamed of doing.

"But then you see the infrastructure and ambition the club has, which people will see when they visit the ground.

"I'm absolutely loving it and I love being out on the grass with the players.

"It has been a massive learning curve and it can be stressful and I have certainly gone a lot greyer.

"But I've been in football my whole life - I don't know anything else - and I think I am good at managing players and individuals."

Kevin Phillips played in four Championship play-off finals

'I felt like I had failed'

Phillips arrived at South Shields in January but he was unable to deliver the promotion the club craved. They missed out on going up automatically to Buxton and then lost at home to Warrington Town in the play-offs.

It left him with feelings more raw than any he had experienced before in a career in which he had already suffered play-off heartache.

But that disappointment with the Mariners has made him even more determined to succeed this season.

"For me, losing in the play-offs last year was much worse," he said. "And I've lost in three play-off finals and Wembley is not a nice place to lose.

"But standing on that touchline against Warrington, I've never felt more stressed.

"I felt like I had been brought to the club to get us promoted and that I had failed.

"It took me a good while to get over it.

"But we brought in nine new players over the summer. They were all in before pre-season and it is paying dividends for us now."

Kevin Phillips retired as a player in 2014 at Leicester City after scoring 282 goals across his nine league clubs, including 130 for Sunderland

'A lot of non-league has not changed'

As a former England striker, there could be a danger of not relating to players at this level. Not so for Phillips.

After being released as an apprentice by Southampton, he ended up at non-league club Baldock Town for three years and that experience stands him in good stead now.

It also acts as a good tool to show his players that the door is always open to moving up the leagues.

"Our players can see the rewards if they work hard and do well," he said.

"They all see the story of Jamie Vardy, I'm not sure they would know about me.

"But I was able to work hard and I always felt an opportunity would come at a higher level.

"The quality now at this level is a lot better but a lot of other things have not changed. The football is tough and you have to roll your sleeves up.

"Our pitch is like a carpet and we're a possession-based side. But you go to some places where it feels like the cows have only just been cleared off and you have to dig in and play a little bit differently, maybe a bit longer.

"There are also some places where I'm not sure I'd have been able to play because the floodlights weren't that bright. But nothing surprises me too much in non-league."

South Shields last reached the FA Cup first round in 2020, losing 3-1 away to Cheltenham Town

'We want to create something sustainable'

For South Shields owner Thompson, it was a piece of opportunism that saw him appoint Phillips, but it is part of a bigger plan to establish the club higher up the leagues.

A new £3m stand, which includes 15 executive boxes, has been opened this season as they try and create a ground that would be suitable for the EFL, with a record crowd of more than 3,500 expected at the First Cloud Arena.

Off the pitch, the club's foundation works with more than 1,000 children to get them involved in sport as they look to make a positive impact in their local community.

"We want to create something sustainable here, but we're not at the level I want to us to be yet," Thompson said.

"There is a population of 75,000 in the town and in an area that loves football, we could get to the Football League one day.

"My hope is that we get to the National League North, maybe then get up into the National League and then we can reassess things as we have to show it can be supported financially.

"This cup tie against Forest Green is fantastic, as we can showcase what South Shields is all about."