Phil Yelland takes a look back over the years to chart The Bluebirds' previous visits to Sutton United ahead of this weekend's League Two encounter.
Saturday sees us heading to Gander Green Lane for the first time since February 2020. That last visit our seventh and it turned out to be our last away game in the National League before the season was called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Two first half goals from Scott Quigley had us in control of that game and we had a third effort disallowed. However, on the stroke of half time, Harry Beautyman pulled once back for the hosts and then the same player equalised in the second half and the game finished level.
That was our third draw at the ground. Our first ever visit there in April 1990 also finished all square – that time it was 3-3, with our goals coming from Billy Gilmour (2) and Gary Messenger.
The following season in the Bob Lord Trophy Final second leg, we suffered our heaviest defeat at the Surrey ground. The first leg at Holker Street just under two weeks earlier had finished 1-1, with a debut for local defender Paul Slater. The return leg on a Monday night saw us blown away 5-0. That followed on from a 2-1 league reverse at Gander Green Lane earlier in the season.
We didn’t meet again in league action for 25 years, until the National League campaign of 2016/17 season when both meetings between the teams finished goalless.
The following season we lost 3-2, with Byron Harrison scoring twice in a game which saw the return of goalkeeper Joel Dixon who had been out injured for ten months. In 2018/19 we recorded our only win there – in February 2019 when we took the points with the only goal of the game coming deep into injury time from Josh Kay.
Let’s hope we can claim our second win on Saturday.