FREE-SCORING Clee Hill United will have revenge on their minds when they bid to transfer their fantastic league form into cup football this weekend, admits boss Wayne Whitbread.

Last weekend’s 6-2 win at Hereford Pegasus Reserves kept United top of the Herefordshire Premier as they seek to defend the title they won last season.

United suffered a string of early cup exits last term and will hope to avoid a repeat this Saturday in the Hereford FA Charity Bowl when they host Ledbury Town – the only side to beat Hill this season.

Manager Whitbread said: “The lads will want to put that defeat right and we also know that the one thing that let us down last season was that we had no real cup run.

“Obviously you can’t be too greedy and with winning the league we were over the moon to get what we did.

“But we were knocked out pretty early in all of the cups we entered so the lads will be looking to progress. Ledbury have already beaten us once so we are expecting another really tough battle.”

United, who host Fownhope in the Herefordshire Challenge Cup a week on Saturday, are sweating on striker Josh Carpenter’s fitness for the game with Ledbury, who beat Hill 2-1 a month ago.

Carpenter suffered a heavy blow to the ankle towards the end of the win at Pegasus, a victory that delighted Whitbread as his side trailed 2-1 at the interval.

Top scorer Carpenter and Ryan Clarke both bagged hat-tricks, and Whitbread said: “I was really pleased with the team because we were pretty short, without seven regulars.

“But the second-half performance was top-drawer. Once we started moving the ball quicker – taking one or two touches to create space instead of three or four – Pegasus tired quite quickly.”

Elsewhere, Ludlow Colts progressed in the Shropshire Challenge Cup with a walkover win over Albrighton but the reserves lost 4-1 at Ross Juniors in Herefordshire Division One.

Woofferton began their delayed Division Two campaign with a 2-0 loss at Bartestree Reserves and boss Dane Pearce bemoaned two late cancellations in their previous games.

Pearce, who side host Belmont Rangers this Saturday, said: “We were dreadful and there might have to be a few words said to a few of the players this week.

“But we missed the first two weeks which set us back a lot – our pre-season friendlies had all built up to the first game and that got cancelled late and then the next one got cancelled late.

“All of a sudden, we hadn’t had a game in a month – if we’d had a bit more notice of the cancellations we could have organised a friendly.”