The opponents are Morecambe, who were relegated from League One at the end of last season, two seasons after reaching that level for the first time in their history. Manager Derek Adams, who led them to promotion through the play-offs before leaving to take over at Bradford City, returned before the end of the following season and steered them clear of the drop but was unable to repeat the feat last season. Morecambe have been an EFL club since 2007, and have visited Sutton once before, in April 2000 when a 1-0 win guided Sutton closer to the Nationwide Conference relegation trap door and completed a double for the Lancashire side who had won 6-2 in the home game at their old Christie Park ground.
Their league position of 12th may be slightly false as they have two games in hand over most clubs having seen their games during the international break postponed due to having several players called up by their countries, including Eli King (Wales U21s), JJ McKiernan (Northern Ireland U21s), Michael Mellon (Scotland U21s) and Jacob Bedeau (Grenada). McKiernan goes in to the weekend in form after scoring a hat trick in Morecambe’s 3-1 win at Colchester in their last game, although James Connolly was sent off in that game.
Sutton will also welcome a player back from international duty with Dion Pereira having earned his first two caps for Antigua & Barbuda in their two Concacaf Nations League games against The Bahamas. Louis John and Jack Rose have begun training after their injuries while long term injury absentees are Craig Eastmond and Scott Kashket. Dominic Gape, signed this week from Wycombe, is unlikely to feature this Saturday as U’s look to repeat the performance that swept Walsall aside a fortnight ago.
Referee Neil Hair is in his sixth season as an EFL referee and was last at the VBS on Good Friday for the visit of Stockport County.
Tickets are as usual available on line at £21 for adults, £15 for concessions (age 60+/full time students with ID) and £7 for juniors age 12-18. Tickets for under 12s are free if bought in conjunction with an adult or concession ticket. Seat prices are £4 extra in all cases. Tickets can be bought on line here. Admission will be available on the day, but a reminder that tickets sold in person on the day carry an increase of £2 which does not apply to on line purchases.
Tickets will also be on sale for Tuesday’s game away to Wrexham, for which we would remind supporters that no tickets will be available to Sutton supporters on the night.
The match programme is on line only this weekend and can be downloaded free of charge here.
The fanzone opens at 12.30, with jerk chicken on sale from the pie pod and from 1.45pm Liv Layne performing live as part of our new agreement with Basement Door (see here for more details).
Unfortunately once again there are no trains through West Sutton station this weekend due to engineering works. Southern services through Sutton are running normally from Victoria, and buses 80 and 413 connect Sutton station to the ground – they also connect with the London Underground Northern Line at Morden.
The game will as usual be covered on our iFollow service, with an audio commentary available in the UK and a live stream for overseas viewers. For UK viewers a match pass costs £2.50, but excellent value monthly passes for £4.49 and a season pass for £45 are available. Overseas viewers can buy a video pass for £10, with a season pass available for £170. Click here for further details and to buy a pass.
Tomorrow is our designated game for the EFL’s ‘Together Against Racism’ campaign and we will be highlighting during the afternoon how supporters can help report discriminatory, anti social and criminal behaviour at the ground. The league yesterday released a video of a discussion about discrimination between David Prutton and Jobi McAnuff and you can find more details here
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