Both teams emphatically top their respective league tables, Dan McNamara’s side having chalked up 10 wins from their 11 games played while the Glassgirls have a 100 per cent record from the 12 fixtures they have undertaken to date.
Sunday’s visitors to Castlecroft, who without doubt are proving the worth of their step up to semi-professional status this season, are absolute favourites to go on and win the West Midland League’s Division One South.
But against a Wolves team that plays two tiers higher than themselves in the women’s football pyramid, they will nevertheless be seen by most as underdogs.
Whatever the odds, however, Wolves midfielder Lowri Walker just wants to get stuck into the action with the excited declaration: “I just love a good Cup run.”
With three goals in the two previous County Cup ties she has played in this season, Walker has shown she wants to keep this particular run going.
And although she warns that the Glassgirls will not be easily broken, the 22-year-old university student is determined to progress to the semi-finals and beyond.
“Stourbridge are obviously a very good team with very good players,” she says. “Some of our girls have played with some of theirs and they rate them.
“Their players are being paid to play so the club is taking the women’s game seriously, and after doing so well in their league so far this season they’ll be aiming to show they’re worthy of playing at a higher level.
“So, I expect them to come at us strongly and we’ll have to be as solid and resolute as we have been in any game this season if we’re going to win.
“But we’ve built a great winning mentality in our squad, we trust each other implicitly and the belief we’ve got can help carry us through.”
That belief certainly helped Walker and her team mates in last Sunday’s 2-0 league victory at promotion rivals Lincoln City, who went into the game on the back of a six-match winning streak while Wolves had won seven on the bounce.
“It was a massive win for us and a deserved one,” says the midfielder, who is studying for a Masters degree in physiotherapy at the University of Birmingham.
“But,” she admits, “after going in front just before half-time we needed a second goal to help kill the game off. Once we’d got that midway through the second half though, we managed the game well and controlled it right to the final whistle.
“We’re in a great position now to push on for promotion and that’s definitely our big ambition. But we’d love to win the County Cup too – and we’re going for it.”
