This Saturday it’s a trip around the M60 to play Hyde, hoping to quickly forget last season’s 5-3 defeat in March. Another notorious Hyde away fixture springs to mind but this was an FA Cup tie.

We managed to knock Hyde out of the cup but sadly our left back Graig Love had already played a game in that seasons FA Cup. Apparently, all the players were asked if they had already played in the Cup and all answered, No. It was only after the game that Graig owned up to playing in the cup, forgetting, he said because you play so many games at the start of a season before signing for us. These days such a mistake would never happen as we would check such instances when signing a player. Having owned up, the football club owned up and unfortunately were removed from the competition.

This league fixture has been somewhat sporadic this century with only 5 previous encounters of which 4 were Conference North fixtures. The honours for the games played 2005/6, 2008/9, 2009/10 and 2010/11 coming, see us winning 1, drawing 1 and losing 2. The 2009/10 fixture was the firs game of the season and I remember driving from a holiday break in Suffolk to get to the game. Of course, the other fixture was last seasons encounter. The gap in years between 2011 and 2016 were due to the two teams going in different directions. Hyde went up from the Conference North for a spell in the Conference at step 1 while we went downwards to the Northern Prem Division 1 South at step 4. However, in recent years the tide has turned. Lets us hop this tide can continue to turn for us.

Hyde have started the season well despite losing their first game at home to Basford and have gone on to record victories on their travels at FC United and South Shields, before beating Buxton at home. Their three wins certainly going a long way to help them cement their current 3rd place. So, it looks to be a tough encounter for us on Saturday, but the higher up the table you are, you are there to be shot at and who knows we could be David to their Goliath. One name in the Hyde squad will be well known to Rangers fans is former Port Vale youngster Harry Benns who had a few months with us last season, and upon his release from Vale is now a Hyde player.

Games played on the 31st August this century

2002 Cambridge City            H              0-1                   Southern League
2009 Solihull                          H              2-3                   Conference North
2013 Ilkeston                         H              2-4                    Northern Prem