Rothbury v. Hexham
Combination Cup Quarter-Final
Saturday 19th October 2019, kick-off 2.00pm
Despite trawling through the history books – you can find
Rothbury’s here, if you’re interested – it appears that this is the first ever
competitive meeting between the Coquetdalers and Hexham.
Hexham Hearts were, of course, one of the leading sides in
North-East football in their heyday of the 1950s, while their predecessors Hexham
Town were Northern Alliance champions in 1935/36, so the paths of the Hillmen
and the Tynedalers have never really crossed even though the clubs are just over
30 miles apart.
That is a fact that manager Dan Herron even found a little
strange.
“For being so close and such old well-established
Northumberland clubs it’s mad that we’ve never met each other before,” he said.
“But we’re really looking forward to it. It’s
home quarter final action in the divisional cup again, and we’re just hoping we
can do better than the Jesmond result last year.”
Herron hopes to have more players available
towards what is looking like almost a full-squad for the first time this season
with a number of players coming back into contention.
“Kyle Smith, Joel Laviers and James
Loughborough are all ready to come back in, and we have more to confirm too. It
will be a really hard test. They’re tipped as one of the favourites for
promotion out of our league so it’s a good yardstick for us. We need to be on
it from the start and play football our own way, rather than focusing on the
opposition,” said Herron.
Hexham currently sit in 6th spot
in Division One, but have games in hand on the sides above them. They’ve won 5
of their 8 League fixtures and drawn one, netting 21 times and conceding 17. The
Reds are only two points adrift, but have played a game more, so an exciting
contest is anticipated and the Reds are hoping for a bumper turn-out to cheer
the side on.
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