Steve Jupp, BA11's Club Historian, looks ahead to this weekend's visit down the road for another pre-season all-Somerset clash.
After finding their shooting boots at Clevedon in the week, the Scarlet Runners face further Western League Premier Division opposition on Saturday with the short trip to Shepton Mallet and an opportunity to revive the A361 derby.
On the same night Frome ran in five goals on the Somerset coast, Shepton overcame Devizes 1-0 on their own Playing Fields surface and will be looking to build upon a successful 2023-24 campaign which brought silverware in the form of the Les Phillips Cup (beating Barnstaple 3-1 in the final) to go with a creditable seventh place finish in the league.Â
Competitive fixtures between the two in recent years have been rare with the last being a Somerset Premier Cup quarter final at West Shepton in early 2019. Billy Fletcher gave the Robins a second half lead that night and it looked to be enough until Tyson Pollard levelled from the spot right at the death before Carl Crabtree saved penalty number ten of the shoot-out to send Frome through.
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You have to go back a bit further for the most recent league meeting. That was during the 2001-02 Western League Division One season, a title-winning campaign for the Robins under the stewardship of Simon White, but they were close games against the Mallet, a 1-1 draw away and a narrow 1-0 win at Badgers Hill on Easter Saturday witnessed by 423, a positively huge crowd for those distant days.
Danny Greaves and his charges now know their opponents for the big Southern League Premier Division get-go on August 10th when they will make the trip to Gosport Borough while Shepton only have to wait just a week for their opener at home to newly-promoted Portishead and a side that much closer to battle-readiness should offer a decent test.
If you need more build-up, have a listen to the latest episode of BA11's podcast as Chairman, Derek Graham, takes the mic ahead of our step up to the Southern Premier before play-off final hero, Matt Wood, discusses a return to his former club.
Now the fixture list is out, don't miss the chance to take advantage of our Season Tickets which you can secure on the FanBase app (link below) alongside admission to our pre-season friendlies at home against Bath City and Swansea City U21s!
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