Steve Jupp, BA11's Club Historian, previews this weekend's double-header in the league!
It’s a big Bank Holiday weekend double header for The Robins with a bumper Badgers Hill
crowd expected for Monday’s eagerly anticipated Somerset derby against Taunton Town.
Before that, however, they travel east to Alwyns Lane for a first ever meeting with Chertsey
Town, a side who also won promotion from Step Four last season.
Known as ‘The Curfews’, so named after a centuries-old curfew bell which still hangs in a
local church, the Surrey-based side won the Isthmian League South Central Division last
season by an impressive twenty-one-point margin, losing just one game.
They’ve had a decent start to the current campaign, last week’s 3-2 success at Tiverton
making it two wins and a loss from their opening three fixtures but Frome are seasoned
travellers these days, not having lost on the road since that reverse at Mousehole in early
February.
Chertsey have dabbled briefly with the Southern League before, in Division One Central
from 2011-14, but dropped down to the Combined Counties League from where they were
not only promoted in 2019 (to Isthmian South Central) but also won the FA Vase final at
Wembley (3-1 against Cray Valley Paper Mills).
A team who until a little over a week ago had gone thirty-seven league games unbeaten, will
pose a formidable threat, but their open, attacking style may well suit Danny Greaves’ side.
With less than a forty-eight-hour turnaround between games, squad rotation will surely
come into play for Monday’s clash which will be the first competitive meeting between the
two Somerset rivals for some five years.
That was a Somerset Premier Cup semi-final clash here at The Hill which went the way of
the visitors by the odd goal in three but just a few days previously, goals from Troy Simpson
and Tom Mehew earned a vital 2-0 home win attended by just 261 in what proved to be a
fruitless relegation battle.
SOUTHERN LEAGUE ENCOUNTERS WITH TAUNTON
Season League Home Away
2009-10 Div 1 S&W W 2-1 W 3-0
2010-11 Div 1 S&W D 0-0 L 0-1
2018-19 Prem S W 2-0 L 0-3
The Peacocks may not have had it all their own way in the league, but they’ve certainly had
the better of recent cup encounters; as well as that most recent meeting, they won 1-0 here
in an FA Trophy tie in 2012 and by the same score the following season in the Premier Cup
final played at Paulton.
After dominating the Western League scene at the turn of the millennium, they became a
Southern League outfit (for a second time) in 2002 but had to strive for a further sixteen
years to make the step up to Premier Division level where they became champions in 2022.
Their first campaign in the National League South brought a steady fourteenth-place finish
while last season, they topped the table after a handful of games before financial problems
coupled with a string of home postponements contrived to cause their eventual demise and
demotion.
Richard Luffman will be a familiar face in the opposition dugout to Frome fans, having
managed Cribbs last season in that trio of close meetings with The Robins (one win, one
draw, one loss) and his appointment at Wordsworth Drive has attracted a generous
smattering of players from his former club.
Taunton have yet to pick up a point on the road this new campaign, defeated by the only
goal at both Poole and Hungerford, while the Scarlet Runners have done likewise at home.
Something has to give on Monday afternoon, will the Robins be flying high come five
o’clock or will The Peacocks be preening?
Listen to the latest episode of the Dodge The Question podcast as hosts Steve and Zeb interview Alex Monks on all things Southern League Prem and his six-year stint in Frome as well as a look-ahead to the Bank Holiday fixtures!
Secure your entry to Monday's game against Taunton Town and our league games at home coming up in September on the Fanbase app and website!
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