Paul Attfield will serve his first ever touchline ban during his eight years as a manager on Saturday as his Royston Town side entertain Three Bridges in the preliminary round of the FA Carlsberg Trophy.

The charge dates back to the 2-2 draw away at Beaconsfield SYCOB on September 16 after Attfield was reported by referee Gary Nowak.

The Crows boss and his coaching team were left seething at Nowak’s performance, in which he sent off Royston keeper George Lawton, with Attfield telling the Royston Crow that he felt the official was ‘out of his depth’.

The end result is a one match suspension for both Attfield and number one Lawton.

“It’s an interesting one for me on Saturday as I will be watching the game from the stands, so who knows how that’s going to go,” said the Town boss.

“It’s the first time in eight years, so it’s a new one for me.”

With Lawton missing out, Attfield has revealed 17-year-old youth team keeper Zach Binge is expected to don the gloves for the visit of Three Bridges to Garden Walk.

“The young lad joined up from Bury Town, and he will be thrown in at the deep end I suppose,” added Attfield.

“We have a habit of developing good, young keepers here, so it’s not a worry to me. He has been playing well in the youth teams, and to me it doesn’t matter how old you are if you’ve shown you’re good enough.”

Attfield is expected to welcome back a host of first-team players for the game against Three Bridges who missed Saturday’s 4-0 FA Cup Second Round Qualifying defeat at home to Histon.

The prolific Robbie Mason, Lewis Endacott, Taylor Parr and Luke Robins will be hoping to feature in the Trophy clash.

“We are going completely into the unknown on Saturday, as I don’t really know much about them [Three Bridges]” admitted Attfield.

“But after Saturday against Histon, I think it’s quite important to get a result; I think we will be in better shape with the squad now.”

Against Histon, the result was in the balance at half-time, with both sides tied at 0-0 and Royston shading it on chances.

But Histon, who play two divisions higher than Royston in the Skrill North, stepped up a gear in the second period, and scored four unaswered goals.

Lewis Taaffe (two), Michael Built and Kaine Sheppard found the back of the net.

“I thought we set ourselves up nicely at half-time, and felt we could have nicked a goal from our first half performance where we were the better side,” said Attfield.

“But we just fell apart in the second half; we conceded a poor first goal and from then on there was only going to be one winner.”