Steve Jupp, BA11's Club Historian, looks ahead to our Easter weekend home clash against the North Devon side.
Badgers Hill stages the first half of a crucial Easter double-header on Saturday when old foes Bideford roll into town.
Ahead of Monday's mouth-watering derby at Melksham, Danny Greaves' side will need to be 100% focused on repeating the result they achieved in the reverse fixture in North Devon just three short weeks ago.
That hard-earned 1-0 victory enabled them to maintain the pressure on table-toppers Wimborne who play just the once this weekend (away at Tavistock on Saturday), giving Frome the opportunity to make the most of their game in hand.
Top Three
Pld Pts Gdif
Wimborne 30 66 +30
FROME 29 62 +26
Cribbs 30 55 +9
Since that meeting earlier this month, play-off chasing Bideford have been busy catching up on their fixtures, completing a whistle-stop tour of the bottom three which yielded a win and two draws but on Tuesday they crashed 5-0 at Mousehole, their heaviest reverse of the campaign.
That leaves them in sixth spot, still in the mix but along with at least half a dozen other teams all scrapping for what looks like the final two play-off places.
They have a remarkable manager in Sean Joyce, an ex-pro at Doncaster and Torquay, who became boss as long ago as 1998 and has occupied the hot seat ever since... that's over a quarter of a century!
On the subject of longevity, what a fabulous sight it was to see Matt Smith enter the fray at Evesham last week, over a year and a half since that horrendous knee injury. For someone in their mid-30s, it speaks volumes for his character and determination to want to play again at this level of football and in many ways it's like having a new signing but better.
With the home unbeaten run for Southern League games now stretching to an impressive TWENTY matches, gates for the season have averaged at around the 460 mark, second only to Wimborne (them again...!) in Division One South.
The 2-0 triumph over Yate a fortnight ago attracted a bumper 571 and with the Robins racking up SIX straight Badgers Hill wins since the turn of the year, surely Saturday’s clash deserves a similar figure.
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Play off Conundrums?
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