The first time we played Chesham United was in an FA Amateur Cup 4th qualifying round tie, when we lost 3-2 in Buckinghamshire on 19th November 1938, Ron Sexton scoring both of our goals. We have also met in the FA Trophy, and on both occasions we came out on top: in 2003-04 we won 2-0 away and 15 years later we won a home tie 1-0.

On 21st August 1948, Chesham became the first club from outside of Sussex that we had played in a league fixture. They were our opponents in our first Corinthian League fixture, after we had left the Sussex County League at the end of the previous season. Ron Wood scored our goal in the 3-1 home defeat; he had also scored our final goal in the County League.

We played Chesham in each of our 15 seasons in the Corinthian League. We also met in two ties in the Corinthian League Memorial Shield, which was the competition’s league cup; in 1949-50 we went through to the semi-final after a replay and in 1955-56 we lost in the first round.

In 1963, the Corinthian League became Division 1 of the Athenian League and we beat today’s opponents in both league encounters on our way to promotion. We also faced each other in the final of the Athenian League Memorial Shield (the former Corinthian League trophy, which was competed for by Division 1 clubs) and we lost on aggregate, after drawing the home leg. This was the only time we reached the final of that competition.

We next played Chesham in Athenian League Division 1 in 1967-68, after our relegation from the Premier Division, and then again in 1972-73, after securing promotion from Division 2.

It was ten years before we played each other again, this time in the Isthmian League Division 1. We won both matches, each of which was in the last fortnight of the season, on our way to winning the championship to reach the Isthmian Premier Division for the first time. The home match was won 5-0, which equalled our largest winning margin in these encounters; we had defeated Chesham 7-2 at Woodside Road in 1953-54.

After our relegation from the Premier Division in 1987, we played Chesham in Division 1 for the next four seasons. During this period, we also met in the Isthmian League Cup for the only time, when we suffered a 5-1 away defeat. The last of those four seasons was our disastrous 1990-91 campaign, and promotion-chasing Chesham defeated us 8-0 on their ground, our largest margin of defeat in these matches. We met for one further season in Division 1, in 1996-97.

This is the first season that we have played each other in National League South, and the away match (on 9th November) ended 2-0 to our opponents.

A summary of our results against today’s opponents is shown below: