Oxford City boss Ross Jenkins has admitted the long trip for their FA Cup tie with Scarborough Athletic is “not ideal” but his side won’t use it as an excuse.

The Hoops will make the eight-and-a-half-hour round trip in the fourth qualifying round on Saturday, with a place in the first round at stake.

Jenkin’s side had been hit with injury with the Hoops training with only eight first-team players and a 17-year-old.

City go into the game on the back of an impressive 3-0 home win against Fylde.

A victory for either side could see them face a Football League team in the next round.

Jenkins said: “There’s no hiding from the journey, it’s going to be a long one.

“To go there and get something is key. It’s going to be a battle.

“Everyone knows the importance of it, we’ll put a big shift in on and off the pitch, to try and get a good result.

“We’re doing some good planning and prepping with the bodies that we do have, to hopefully put a squad together to go up there and give a good account of ourselves.

“I’m looking forward to it, the FA Cup is a special thing to be in and hopefully we can come back with a good result.”

Scarbrough Athletic currently play in the National League North, the sixth tier of the English football, however, Jenkins doesn’t see his side as the favourites going into the game, despite playing in the tier above the Seagulls.

He said: “On paper, we’re the higher team, but if you look at club size, attendance and all that kind of stuff, there isn’t much between us.

“It’ll be a difficult game for sure. I wouldn’t say there’s a million miles between us and they’ll know that as well.

“We can’t go there thinking we’re better than anyone because we’ll get rolled over.

“We’ve got to respect them and respect that National League North is a difficult league.

“If you’re competing at that level, then you’ve got something about you. We’re fully aware of the challenge ahead of us.

“Obviously the travel is not ideal, but there are a lot of clubs that have got to do that, so we can’t use that as an excuse.

“We’ve got to make sure we apply ourselves properly, coming off a 3-0 win against AFC Fylde that will definitely do us the world of good going up there.

“We’ve got to try and replicate what we did on Saturday and add more.”

Despite a potential dream tie in the next round, Jenkins says all the focus is on the task at hand.

He said: “It’s an attractive competition, especially now that we enter it at a different stage.

“It’s one we need to be fully focused on. Nothing is going to change in terms of our match preparation, we’ll stick to what we’ve been doing all of last year and this season.

“We’ll continue with our basics of how we deliver and how we approach games.”