IT'S taken four years, but Denis Underwood finally gets the chance to gain some compensation for his Wembley heartache when Brigg Town arrive at Great Harwood tomorrow.

Brigg denied Underwood and his Clitheroe team of FA Vase glory under the Twin Towers four years ago.

And tomorrow they cross swords for the first time since then when the Northern Counties East League leaders take on Underwood's current club, Harwood, in the first round proper of the same competition.

"I just chuckled to myself really when the draw came out, until I had a look at how Brigg are doing.

"It looks as though they are romping away at the top of their league," said Underwood.

And tomorrow's clash won't just bring back a few memories for the former Blues boss as five members of Clitheroe's 1996 squad -- Clive Dunn, Neil Baron, Neil Otley, Andy Taylor and Jon Riley -- are now with Underwood at the Showground.

"When I mentioned it in the dressing room a few of them had a smile to themselves," he added.

Underwood doesn't see it as a revenge mission, although Carl Stead, who scored twice at Wembley, is still a Brigg player.

Instead he's just hoping to keep the cup dream alive and spark an upturn in Harwood's fortunes in the North West Counties League, where they are currently stuck in the First Division's bottom three. "In the FA Cup you know at some stage that you're going to get knocked out so the Vase is the most important," said the Reds' boss.

"If you've actually gone as far as we did, or close to that, you realise it's possible.

"When we started out on that Vase run at Clitheroe we were in the bottom third of the league and going pretty badly.

"But we just clicked in a couple of games and if you could have doubled your points from the second half of the season we would have won the league comfortably.

"We've had a poor start to the season and we've had a few injury problems but we had a good result at Fleetwood in the Floodlit Trophy in mid-week.

"Sometimes teams don't always put their strongest team out in that but theirs was the same side, plus a couple of additons, that beat us in the league and it was an important fixture for them.

"In the two games before against St Helens and Ramsbottom, even though we got beaten, we played quite well and carried that on against Fleetwood.

"We've got a couple more players back and looked stronger and we just want to build on that result."

Underwood is still without strikers Steve Lynch and Martin Horsfield, as well as long-term injury victim Paul Whalley.

But Harwood, who beat Armthrope Welfare at the preliminary round stage of the Vase, have saved some of their best results for the knock-out competitions and Underwood will be hoping to at least put the record straight for that Wembley hurt.

He added: "Straight after you are absolutely gutted and I think 3-0 flattered them a little bit.

"But about four weeks afterwards you think about the semi-final and feel sorry for the manager who lost then.

"You always say about the Vase that it gets really serious if you're still in it in the New year.

"It's very early stages but it has kicked up one a little bit different."