Preview by Tony Cunningham
Tuesday night sees an east Lancashire local derby between two sides that opened their account with victories on Saturday.
Whilst the Rams were 2-1 victors at home to Market Drayton Town, Colne won by the same score on the road at Newcastle Town, setting up what is always a tense and interesting fixture.
Two seasons ago, the Rams were victorious in a highly entertaining game, thanks to the trusty left foot of Darren Green, whose thunderbolt winner was later adjudged as the goal-of-the-season.
Last year, however, the trip was less memorable for the Ramsbottom team. A similar 1-0 scoreline finished in favour of the home side, with the visitors harshly losing the services of midfielder Jamie Rother through a disputed red card, swiftly followed by the dismissal from the dug-out of an irate manager Mark Fell.
For the Rams, Jerome Wright serves his second and last suspension, Greg Daniels is still a week or two away from coming back from the injury he sustained pre-season, and the long-awaited International Clearance for Tom Kennedy is still to come though, meaning he is likely to be unavailable again, unless the FA of Wales finally gets it’s act together before 3.45 on Tuesday.
Which way this season’s game will go is anybody’s guess, but whatever the eventual outcome, you can expect another worth-watching encounter.
Stats complied by Adam Clark
Match officials
Referee – Mark Reeves
Assistant Referee 1 – Matthew Young
Assistant Referee 2 – Zeyad Ahmed
Head to head: The Rams have face Colne many times over the years (27 in fact). The Rams have won 14 of them, Colne have won 11 and there have been 2 draws
Players that have played for both: Lee Gaskell, Oliver Crankshaw, Lee Pugh, Marcus Poscha, Luke Thompson, Dean Stott, Phil Dean, Mark Ayres, Rob Grimes, Michael Morrison and Adam Morning.
Last meeting: Colne 1 Ramsbottom United 0 – 13th January 2018
Match Report: Yet no luck again for the Rams
Match coverage
Full match updates on our twitter feed – twitter.com/ramsbottomutd
Match report by Jon Haslam, photos by Frank Crook & highlights of the match will be available on Wednesday across our various platforms.
