Road is paved with goals for Motormen

FA Cup: All club hands to the wheel as Brazier fosters winning spirit at Vauxhall

It was a good week for the Anfield class of '96. The head boy and the star pupil both scored vital goals. At Loftus Road on Tuesday Phil Brazier struck the equaliser that set Vauxhall Motors on the road to their FA Cup giant-killing of Queen's Park Rangers, the UniBond League club winning 4-3 on penalties after the first round replay was tied at 1-1 at the end of extra time. In Arnhem's space-age Gelredome 48 hours later Michael Owen scored the winner that got Liverpool back on track on the European front, with a 1-0 success against Vitesse. It was his 125th first-team goal for Liverpool.

Brazier's goal was only his third since the May night in 1996 when he hoisted the FA Youth Cup at Anfield. He was captain of the Liverpool team that clinched a 4-1 aggregate win in the final against West Ham. Owen scored Liverpool's opening goal in a 2-1 victory that night. Jamie Carragher and David Thompson were also in the team; Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard were in the West Ham side. A crowd of 20,600 watched.

There were just 5,336 watching at Loftus Road on Tuesday, but Brazier rates the occasion as "an even bigger night than the youth cup final". "Not just for myself, but for every one of the lads," he said, in true captain's style. "They did themselves proud, every one of them. They can hold their heads up high."

They can indeed, although some of them must have been in danger of nodding off at work the following day, having returned back to Merseyside from west London at 5am. Midfielder Carl Nesbitt, who scored in the penalty shoot-out, was back on the production line at the Vauxhall plant in Ellesmere Port just two hours later. Brazier, sensibly, had already arranged for a day-off. "I'm a civil servant, at the benefits agency in Liverpool," he said. "I process disability claims. There's only Carl who actually works at the car plant."

The Vauxhall club was formed by the workforce at Ellesmere Port in 1963. It has been in overdrive since 1998, the year Alvin McDonald arrived as manager with a Wembley winner's pedigree. McDonald guided Poulton Victoria to victory in the final of the FA Sunday Cup in 1998, and with him at the wheel "the Motormen" have progressed from the Second Division of the North West Counties League to the Premier Division of the UniBond League, the old Northern Premier League. They have shown little sign of slowing down either, as QPR found to their cost, first in the goalless draw at the Deva Stadium in Chester and then in the replay last Tuesday night.

Brazier, a right-back or centre-back, has been with McDonald every step of the way. He signed for the Motormen in the summer of 1998, after being released by Liverpool. "After we won the FA Youth Cup I was offered a two-year professional contract," he said. "Coming to the end of that, Roy Evans, who was the gaffer at the time, said he couldn't see me getting in the first team. It was fair enough. I haven't got a bad word to say about anyone at Liverpool Football Club. They were all nice fellas there, and I had a great time.

"I grew up playing with the likes of Michael Owen. You could tell from an early age that he was going to be something special. Obviously, our two paths have gone separate ways, but I wouldn't change it for anything. I'm at a great club now, Vauxhall Motors, and I'm enjoying my football more than ever. I couldn't be happier.

"I can remember back in school the teacher asking, 'What would you like to be when you're older?' Two of us said, 'Footballer'. The other lad was Terry Fearns, who's our centre-forward. It's only one in every 100 or 200 that actually makes it, but if that's the ratio, that's the ratio. You just have to get on with it."

Brazier, 25, was getting on with it yesterday in an FA Trophy second round encounter against Frickley Athletic at Vauxhall's Rivacre Park ground. Come 5.35pm next Saturday the Aintree resident will be getting on with it live on Sky Sports in the second round of the FA Cup. Macclesfield Town at Moss Rose are next in line for the giant-killing Motormen.

"We've just got to go out with the same attitude we had against Queen's Park Rangers," Brazier said. "We'll obviously respect Macclesfield for who they are but we'll go out with nothing to lose. If we play anything like we did in the 10 or 15 minutes after Queen's Park Rangers scored on Tuesday night, I think a few people might be in for a shock in front of the live cameras." Though not Michael Owen, perhaps. He already knows the leadership powers of the Vauxhall Motors captain.