STILL with no memory of the incident that led to the abandonment of the original tie last week, Tom Bender will sit in front of the radio tonight hoping Kurtis Guthrie and the rest of his Accrington Stanley team-mates can keep his Wembley dream alive.

“Kurtis has said he is going to try to score for me,” said Bender, who has shared a flat with the striker this season but returned to Essex seven days ago as he recovers from the head injury that sparked national headlines.

“I’ll probably be listening to the game on the radio.

“I hope we get through because the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy is a competition we can win. It would be great if we could get to Wembley this season.”

Bender joined Stanley on a season-long loan from Colchester in August and was back watching his parent club on Saturday as he received the welcome news that 10-man Accrington had come from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 at Plymouth.

Four days earlier he had been rushed to the Royal Blackburn Hospital after being inadvert-ently knocked unconscious by a stray punch from his own keeper Ian Dunbavin, with Stanley 2-1 down in the 38th minute of a Johnstone’s Paint Trophy second round tie against Tranmere that will be replayed from scratch tonight.

It was a worrying night for all at the club, before news eventually filtered through that he had suffered only severe concussion.

“It’s still a blank,” said the 18-year-old, who has attended training with Colchester this week – although he is not yet ready to get back on the field.

“I can’t remember it, so I don’t think I’ll be afraid to go into challenges when I come back.

“I’m getting better day by day now and the headache has gone.

“I just want to get back playing again, although I don’t know exactly when that will be yet because I have to see the specialist first.

“But I’ve had lots of texts and phone calls from everyone at the club asking how I am. Ian Dunbavin called me as soon as I left hospital.

“People have said he was really worried about me at the time but it was a complete accident.

“I’m looking forward to going back up there. I was really looking forward to the chance to play last week and show what I could do, but I didn’t get the opportunity to do that.

“Hopefully I will get that chance again.”

Bender’s mother travelled to visit him in hospital as soon as she learned the news of his injury but his father had already been at the Crown Ground, having delivered the player’s PlayStation earlier in the day. It currently remains untouched in the Stanley offices.

“I was really glad my dad was at the game,” said the left-sided defender.

“To be honest I’m glad as well that my mum wasn’t there because she probably would have panicked. But it was good to have someone there.”

By strange coincidence, Bender had been an unused substitute for Colchester less than two months earlier when a pre-season friendly against Ipswich similarly had to be abandoned because of a head injury to team-mate Andy Bond.

“He was down for so long,” recalled the teenager, who received get well messages from the likes of Jack Wilshere and Robbie Savage on Twitter last week.

“It was horrible. It felt like forever before we got the news from the hospital that he was okay. I can’t remember my injury but I know from what happened with Andy Bond how everyone must have been feeling.

“I had so many messages of support. I never thought there would be so much media attention, and I’ve got quite a lot of new followers on Twitter.

“The messages have been amazing and I can’t thank everyone enough.”