Thatcham and Evesham met in the Southern League Division 1 South & West during the 2013/14 season. Evesham finished 16th and Thatcham 19th, but the Kingfishers resigned from the Southern League to cut costs by playing at a lower level.

In September 2013 two sides fought out a 1-1 draw in Berkshire. Town’s current boss Yashwa Romeo was fouled and Charlie Hill converted the resulting spot-kick, but Marcus Palmer scored an 86th minute equaliser for the Robins. Evesham won the return fixture 5-0, with Thatcham failing to recover from Paul Taplin’s red card.

Also in the Southern League D1, Town won 2-1 at Evesham in October 2018. After Sean Brain put United in front, Thatcham replied through Lewis Gabbidon and James Clark. The Kingfishers completed the double in Feburary, winning 4-2 in a hugely entertaining game. Shane Cooper-Clark (2 penalties), Kyle Tooze (on his debut) and Scott Rees scored the Thatcham goals, with Kane Simpson (also with 2 penalties) responding for Evesham. Town finished the game with nine men following the sendings off of Stu Cattell and Jack Alexander.

Evesham are currently in third place having picked up 6 points over the Bank Holiday weekend. Levi Steele scored both goals in their 2-0 win at Shaftesbury before Ibrahim Olateju struck the only goal late on at home to Cinderford.

Evesham received a bye in the previous round of the FA Trophy while Thatcham won 1-0 at Cribbs. Evesham were beaten at the first hurdle in the FA Cup, losing a replay at Newcastle Town.

The Robins are managed by Mike Ford who made close to 500 football league appearances for Cardiff City and Oxford United. Following spells as caretaker manager of The U’s, he also managed Oxford City and Banbury United.

In his programme notes, boss Yashwa Romeo said,

“We reached this stage of the competition after winning at Cribbs a couple of weeks ago when Shamar took his goal very well. It was a game of few chances but I thought we were relatively comfortable and Callum didn’t have much to do between the posts.

While realistically we are not going to win this competition, there is chance to make progress, and I think playing competitive games is good for us while we are still bedding the new players in, and trying to come up with a winning formula.

Evesham have won 4 out of 5 this season and are an established Southern League side, so today will be a tough task. Mike Ford was my Assistant Manager when I played at Oxford City so I fully expect them to be a good footballing team. But we’ll focus on ourselves and make sure we do things the right way.

I want us to be ready from minute one, rather than starting to play after 30 minutes or the second half, as we have sometimes lately. We have been slow starting too often this season and found ourselves behind before we have clicked.

We also need to improve up front with our decision making and goal scoring, but will be without Kyle today who is suspended.

In our most recent game against Bashley, I felt we struggled to match them physically until we grew into the game. We were on top in the second half but couldn’t quite force the equaliser and unfortunately paid the price when we were punished for a mistake in injury time.

Enjoy the game and as always thank-you for your support. YASH”