'STONES WON'T BE ROLL-OVER!'

FA CUP legend Keith Houchen has warned his old club Coventry that they will need to match Maidstone “yard for yard” to avoid a major last16 upset tomorrow night.

- Dave Flett

Houchen’s name is synonymous with Cup glory – his diving header during the Sky Blues’ famous 1987 triumph against Tottenham being firmly etched in final folklore.

Two seasons earlier, meanwhile, his 90th-minute penalty for York had dumped Arsenal out of the competition’s fourth round.

But the Middlesbrough-born forward was also on the receiving end of one of the tournament’s biggest shocks, as a 70th-minute sub when Coventry – still a top-flight team at that point – lost 2-1 at then Non-League hosts Sutton United in 1989.

Recalling that contest – just a month on from its 35-year anniversary – and the lessons the current Sky Blues can learn from it, Houchen told The FLP: “We’d trained on Sutton’s ground before we played the game, so we knew what to expect. The dressing rooms were really tight but a lot of us, including myself, had come up from the lower leagues, so we weren’t fazed by that. I remember (manager) John Sillett even saying to us, ‘Don’t be the idiots that everybody is writing and talking about tomorrow’.