Steve Jupp, BA11's Club Historian, previews another clash against the Romans and ponders whether the Robins can at last claim their scalp.
With the big Southern League kick-off now under a fortnight away, Badgers Hill stages a juicy pre-season clash on Tuesday evening with the visit of National League South neighbours Bath City.
The Romans have been frequent opponents in recent times, this being the SEVENTH meeting in just three years with the side in black and white just edging it by six wins to none. Tormentor-in-chief has been striker Cody Cooke, finding the net (often more than once) in each of those half dozen encounters, but, after his departure to Torquay United last week, the curse of Cody should be no more.
Bath's most recent warm-up game produced a goalless stalemate against Bristol City U21s on Saturday, their third clean sheet in a row and, more notably, they defeated League Two outfit Port Vale by a goal a week earlier.
Last in the top flight of non-league football in 2012, the new season will be their thirteenth consecutive campaign in National League South where they finished sixth last term before losing out to eventually promoted Braintree in a play-off quarter final.
On the same day the Robins open their account for real at Gosport Borough, Bath travel to Boreham Wood, one of the big guns relegated last term, for their first taste of league action and a fixture in their line-up is the popular defender Joe Raynes, who played, with distinction, for Frome the last time they competed at the giddy level of Step Three, and now has something like 200 appearances for his current club under his belt.
Like Frome, the Romans have a rich and colourful history but, unlike Frome, they've won the Somerset Premier Cup 25 times, the Football League North Championship in 1944 (work that one out!), and, in the 70s, reached two Anglo-Italian Cup finals, the second of which was against Udinese, no less.
With three wins in a week over Clevedon, Shepton and Westbury, Tuesday will be a big test for Danny Greaves' squad and they will have to be at their best to break that Bath City hoodoo and even if they don't, the way things have worked out recently, they may well get another crack fairly soon.
If you need more build-up, have a listen to the latest episode of BA11's football podcast as new signing Matt Goulding is quizzed on his pre-season and all things academy football ahead of our step up to the Southern Premier.
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 this Tuesday against Bath City and on Saturday against Swansea City U21s!
Bath City have generally been too good for us in recent years but thankfully they ae not as good as Yeovil Town. So hopefully, we can get a little closer to them this time around. They hammered us 5-0 in the FA Cup at Twerton Park ( one of the poorest grounds I've been to) a few years back and beat us there again 3-1 last season in the SPC 3-1. We played them at 'The Hill' in the semi final of the SPC ' the season before that and although we only lost 2-1 , we never looked like winning and they should have been 4-0 up at half time! We seem to always have …