A look at a fixture that hasnt been a regular on the calendar over the years.

Saints have never met Doncaster Rovers in any of the cups, in fact prior to this season the two clubs have only been in the same division for eight seasons and only one of those has been within the last fifty years.

The clubs first met in 1935/36 when Saints won 1-0 at Doncaster's old Ground Belle Vue in the old Division 2, both sides struggled that season although newly promoted Rovers had a bumper crowd of 14.227 turn up for their first home game of the season who went home disapointed after seeing Saints win 1-0

The following year Rovers would finish bottom winning only seven games, like the previous year this was their first home game of the season, but the simiarlarities stopped there as Rovers won 2-0.

We wouldnt met again till after the second world war when again Rovers had just won promotion to the 2nd Division and we travelled there on the opening day of 1947/48, a crowd of 30,000 squeezed into their old ground next to the racecourse and saw a 1-1 draw, it would again be a disapointing season for Rovers as they went down this time second from bottom.

The 1950 saw a plethora of games between the two clubs as Rovers again won promotion and we travelled up in August to fight out a goaless draw which was good enough to see rovers above us on goal average at the end of the season.

There then followed a 1-0 victory for us in 51/52, before a defeat in Doncaster in 52/53 which this time saw us relegated at the end of the season and Rovers remain in the 2nd division for a spell whilst we languished in the 3rd.

When the old Division 3 South's and North's were amalgamated in 1958/59 we resumed hostilities with the South Yorkshire club losing 3-2 at Belle Vue in January 1959 in a game that may or may not have been watched by ex Saint and boyhood Doncaster fan Kevin Keegan.

This would be the last meeting till the two sides met again in the Championship three years ago in 2008/09 when a youthful Saints side won 2-0 in their first ever visit to the keepmoat, 10,867 including 958 Saints supporters seeing a Matt Mills own goal and an Andrew Surman penalty giving Saints all three points.

Out of the starting 11 that day in September amazinlgly four of them look likely to play on Saturday, Kelvin Davis, Jack Cork, Morgan Schneiderlin and Adam Lallana are playing their part in a win that for a while at least suggested that Saints might just surprise their detractors in what would be a difficult season.  

Photo: Action Images

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