THERE will be plenty of friends reunited this weekend when Petersfield Town travel to Winchester City in the FA Trophy.

It will be the first time the Rams have come up against their former manager Ian Saunders since he left the club just before the start of the season to take up the Winchester job.

The Preliminary Round tie at the Denplan Stadium tomorrow (Saturday) will also pit Winchester City’s assistant manager Jason Hampson and goalkeeping coach Jamie Cotton against their former club.

And those are the ties between the two sides just on the coaching staff, on the pitch Howard Neighbour, Jamie Ford, Joe Briggs and Jason Silver are all former Rams who are expected to play some part in the game. Ed Dryden – who left Petersfield to sign for Premier League club Stoke City in 2015 – has also joined Winchester this season.

There are some Winchester links in the Petersfield camp too just for good measure. Midfielder Stuart Green played for them during the 2014-15 season when the Rams pipped City to the Wessex League Premier Division title.

Add into all of that that this is a local derby clash – just 23 miles separate the two clubs along the A272 – and this has all the ingredients of being an interesting FA Trophy encounter.

Winchester will undoubtedly go into the match as favourites as they have the home advantage and better form – Petersfield have still only won one competitive match so far this season.

City also have the better of the more recent form against the Rams as last season they recorded two victories at Love Lane – a 3-1 win in the FA Trophy and a 4-2 victory in the League Cup.

However, Petersfield’s first and reserve teams have developed the knack of getting their fair share of victories over Winchester in recent seasons.

The last competitive clash at the Denplan stadium between the two first teams in August 2014 saw the Rams snatch a 3-2 victory – a result that started the run of form which took them to the Premier Division title.

Petersfield’s hunt for a new first team manager continues although club officials are confident they are close to being able to make an appointment.

In the meantime, director of football Gary Lines will continue looking after first team affairs, assisted by head coach Paul Marsh and goalkeeping coach Tom Best.

The Rams’ major absentee will be midfielder Ryan Woodford who is serving the last game of a three match suspension on Saturday.