Preston Grasshoppers vs. Otley, 26th February 2022, 2:30pm
Preston Grasshoppers welcome top of the table Otley to Lightfoot Green this Saturday for the re-arranged pre-Christmas Game.
The visitors have suffered just one defeat so far this season, away at Blackburn and the home side along with their supporters will be hoping for a second at Lightfoot Green this Saturday. The fixture has been hotly anticipated in Preston by supporters and players alike for many weeks and with the opportunity to make amends for the very poor performance (by their own admission) at Cross Green early in the season, the Hoppers squad will be relishing the chance to make amends.
With just six games remaining for each side after this Saturday, which one will be crowned champions come the end of April, may well rest on the result at 4:30. A victory for the visitors would almost certainly give them enough of a lead to stay top until the end of the season, whilst a Hoppers victory, especially if it was to be five match points to nil, would cut the Yorkshire Club’s lead to just two, leaving an opening for Hoppers if Otley were to slip up against anyone else.
Like Hoppers, our visitors were relegated into this division in 2020 and Otley felt demotion would have been avoided if the curtailed season had continued as they had won their last game, were only a few of points from safety and had the already doomed Hoppers and Scunthorpe still to play. However, it wasn’t to be and here is were we’re at!
With the Yorkshire side’s formation taking place a handful of years before ours, it’s no surprise that the playing record between this week’s opponents goes way back, although it took sixty years for them to actually meet. The first encounter was in April 1929 when Otley played Hoppers whilst they were on an Easter tour. The home team ran out winners that day but suffered a comprehensive defeat the following season at Otley’s Cross Green ground against what was thought to be one of the strongest sides in Yorkshire.
There was then a considerable gap in time before the two clubs met again, but once that happened in 1961, games were played each season through into the “Leagues” period.
The records show that there have been fifty three previous games played between the two clubs with this Saturday’s opponents holding a slender lead of just three victories plus two matches being drawn ten points each back in the 1994/95 season and the fairly recent nil-all draw. Five others were cancelled. Amongst the games that have been played, League encounters number just seventeen with seven victories credited to Hoppers and two more to our visitors, plus the drawn game.
DIGGER
Team News
- Olli TRIPPIER
- Chris TAYLOR (c)
- Pete ALTHAM
- Ally MURRAY
- Sam GALE
- Rob BRAMHALL
- Toby HARRISON
- Matt LAMPREY
- Harrison MOULDING
- Alex WARD
- Tyler SPENCE
- Sam STOTT
- Jordan DORRINGTON
- Will CLAPHAM
- Jacob BROWNE
- Oga MABAYA
- Ben DORRINGTON
- Ben PEARSON
Match Day Programme
