Deal Town open their Isthmian South East league campaign on Tuesday night against Faversham Town – Steve King’s side beat Hartley Wintney on penalties at the weekend in the FA Trophy

Deal Town start their league campaign tonight buoyed by cup progress but the manager admits their first league outing couldn’t be much tougher.

The Hoops won on penalties against Hartley Wintney in the FA Trophy preliminary round on Saturday, a week after beating Sutton Athletic in the extra preliminary round of the FA Cup.

Steve King’s side play away against Faversham Town in their Isthmian League South East opener.

King said: “That's two wins in the two cup competitions at home. It's nice to start the season off in a positive fashion.

“I don’t think it’s going to get much tougher this season [than facing Faversham in the league].

“They have to be up there with one of the favourites, so we know how difficult it is going to be, but we go there in good spirits, off the couple of positive results.

“We’re looking forward to trying to get points on the board in the league while we’re navigating this cup run as well.

“We will have to play well to get anything, and I would make them favourites.

“They have an experienced manager. They had a strong squad last year and they have recruited very well on top of that. It's their first home game, they will obviously be looking to get a win, and we will look to spoil the party a bit and see if we can get a result.”

Deal won 4-2 on penalties at the weekend, with James Tonkin making two saves. The match went to a shootout after finishing 1-1 at the end of 90 minutes.

King said: “It was a bit of a strange game because we played really well for 35 minutes. We were deservedly in front, and to be honest, we should have been more in front, and then we got hit with a double whammy.”

Deal conceded a penalty and had a player sent off.

The manager said: “It then became tricky, but I thought we