Duncan Gardner shares his latest edition of Facts of the Match ahead of tonight’s home fixture against Hungerford Town.
In 14 games (including two friendlies) we just have the edge against our visitors from Berkshire with a W7 D2 L5 record. Our last meeting was of course just this season when we travelled for our away National League South encounter on matchday six, the August bank holiday Monday. On that occasion, we took the lead as early as the third minute through a Bearwish strike from a Blair assist, but the hosts equalised just before the hour mark through Gyebi and that concluded the scoring that day.
Starting to look back in history, it was only last season that we find the Crusaders in the spreadsheet again. This was also an away match but this time in the FA Trophy. With the Terras struggling in the National League, and Hungerford just one step below in the pyramid, this was seen very much a banana skin. But the Claret and Blues weathered the storm to snatch victory with six minutes to go, Josh McQuoid from a Cam Murray pass.
Leaping back to our inaugural tussle, we find that was an oddly timed friendly in January 1987 that we lost 0-2. Clearly not learning our lesson, we lost again in another friendly in the summer of 1988. It would be nearly another 20 years before we played each other again, this time in the FA Cup in 2006 in the final qualifying round. Our prize for a 3-0 win was a tie against Football League Bury and we only narrowly bowed out after a replay. We locked horns again in 2011 in the cup, but we needed two games to progress – a 3-1 win away following a 3-3 draw at home. Since then we have had eight league encounters with The Terras enjoying four wins to three including a trio of victories on the bounce.
The full list of those players who have turned out for both sides is – Warren Bentley, Jamie Gosling, Claudio Ofosu, Taofiq Olomowewe, Zaki Oualah, Scott Rees.
Warren played 10 games in the 2018-19 Southern League Championship winning season for The Terras. He featured for Hungerford in the 2016/17 season. Taofiq played for Hungerford briefly in 2019/20. Jamie only played one competitive game for Weymouth, before he moved to Torquay United. Claudio played briefly for the Terras at the start of this campaign before moving to an equally brief stint at Hungerford! Our keeper Zaki had a short stint at Bulpit Lane early in his career, as did Scott Rees.
