Steve Jupp, BA11's Club Historian, shares his thoughts ahead of a challenging tie with a Somerset rival.
With the big Southern League kick-off only a fortnight away, Frome Town welcome National League South Weston-super-Mare to Badgers Hill on Saturday for their final home pre-season fixture.
Buoyed by a clean sheet and a late three-goal blast in Tuesday's physical encounter with FC Bristol, Danny Greaves' squad can expect a thorough examination from the reigning Premier Division South champions.
Formed as long ago as 1887, the Seagulls can proudly boast of never being relegated in the first 132 years of their existence and last competed at the same level with the Robins some three decades ago. That was their Western League title-winning campaign of 1991-92 when Frome were thumped in both games; 7-2 at home in thick fog (the Weston front line kept disappearing into the murk only to regularly trot back to the halfway line, congratulating each other) and 4-0 at the seaside.
The sides met twice during the season before last, both times at The Optima Stadium. Weston won by the odd goal in five in an end-to-end League Challenge Cup tie but four months later, Frome exacted revenge in the Somerset Premier Cup, coming from behind to triumph 2-1 with none other than Rex Mannings (now, of course, with The Seagulls) netting a late winner.
The popular attacking midfielder impressed in his four year stint as a Robin (117 apps and 32 goals), improving his game sufficiently for Bath City to take notice and sign him and, after a loan spell at Yate, he gets to test himself at Step Two once more.
On that night eighteen months ago, Frome's successful line-up was:-
Locke, Teale (Witcombe), Maidment, Hallett, Evans (Lenihan), O'Loughlin, Rigg, Mannings, Simpson, Ollis (Smith), Monks.
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