Nostalgia in Newport

Older Pools fans well remember the days when Newport on a Friday night was a regular fixture between two sides fighting to avoid re-election. Yup that's re-election not relegation ..

It is somewhat reassuring to see that the fixture has been resurrected thanks to County's welcome return to the Football League and to their home record - only one game lost -they're doing rather nicely.

After our dismal start so are we, and we are now looking to push on and at least get a play-off spot.

Tonight's game should give us a decent chance of helping achieve that goal. We are virtually injury free and could bring Jack Compton back to give us some real pace out wide.

County, on the other hand, are having some bad luck with injuries and red cards.  They will be  without goal scorer Chris Zebroski, who has a knee injury. Defender Byron Anthony has a broken leg, while Lee Minshull, Adedeji Oshilaja, Andrew Hughes, Max Porter and Andy Sandell  are also out.

To make matters worse midfielder David Pipe was sent off in their Johnstone’s Paint Trophy win over Portsmouth during the week.

Can we capitalise?