Town boss Kieran McKenna says the whole club is really excited ahead of Sunday’s sell-out Vitality Women’s FA Cup quarter-final against Super League West Ham United at the Goldstar Ground, Felixstowe (KO 12.30pm).
The Tractor Girls reached this stage of the competition for the first time by beating Southampton 4-2 on penalties following a 1-1 after-extra-time draw.
Their biggest ever crowd of 2,000 will watch them take on the Hammers with the game also being shown live on the BBC Red Button in the UK and also overseas in countries including Norway and the US.
"Brilliant, the whole club is really excited for it,” McKenna said. "You can feel the positive energy around the training ground here but also around the stadium and around the town, everyone is very proud of the achievement of getting this far.
"But also really looking forward to be able to test ourselves on Sunday against a Super League team and to have them at home with what’s going to be a really good crowd should make for a fantastic occasion.
"I know [manager] Joe [Sheehan] and his staff and the girls have been working hard all this week to prepare for the game and I’m sure come Sunday they’ll be ready to put in a strong performance and certainly give everything for the club.”
McKenna says the squad is one which is developing very much in line with the ethos of the club as a whole.
"They’re still quite a young group, I know we progressed really far in the tournament a couple of years ago [to the fifth round in 2019/20] and ran into an extremely strong Man City team, but that can happen,” he said.
"It’s a group that’s still progressing and developing, and that fits in well with the rest of the club. It’s a club that’s hoping to develop and progress across all of the teams and all aspects of the club.
"I think it’s going to be a great challenge to play against a team from a higher division at that level of the competition and certainly for some of the younger players that might be their first insight and their first experience of that level of opposition, and hopefully a good marker for where they want to progress to in their careers and where we want to keep progressing to as a club.”