BASINGSTOKE Town will be looking for their first giant killers of the season on Saturday, when they face National League South visitors Hungerford Town in the second qualifying round of the FA Cup.

Hungerford, who include former Town striker Nicholas Bignall, won promotion from the league Basingstoke are now in, and have had a good start to their campaign currently being placed ninth.

The Dragons task has been made that much harder with the news, that experienced midfielder Matt Partridge has been ruled out for a month due to an ankle injury.

He is along with David Ray the only two senior players in the squad and he will be a big miss for Brown’s boys.

The boss said: “Matt is a big loss for us, but we have put this behind us and go out and put on a show for our fans, especially the ones who travelled to Hitchin and Kings Langley.

“Hungerford are a good side and it will be tough and I really hope we can make a good start and being the FA Cup anything can happen.”

Looking back on his past two league games, which seen the Dragons lose at Kings Langley on Tuesday night 2-0 and last Saturday at Hitchin 1-0.

Brown said: “We played a lot better against Kings Langley than at Hitchin despite the result. It was good to have Mark Hastings and Charlie Kennedy in the line-up making their league debuts. I thought both of them did well and Charlie could well solve the problem of who to replace Matt Partridge.”

The Hitchin game saw Brown sent from the dug out along with Hitchin assistant Adam Parker after the home side scored their winner a minute from time.

This followed an incident which saw a ball was fired into the home dug out by Parker, and left Colin Barnes with a cut lip.

Brown said: “This action is unacceptable and he did not even apologise for doing hence why it got so heated and both of us were send away.”

On Tuesday night, Town are at home to Farnborough in the Hampshire Senior Cup, unless either side are FA Cup replay action.