Match Preview

The Fenmen are back on the road when they travel to Leicestershire to play Step 5 newcomers Ashby Ivanhoe on Saturday.
They will be looking to improve on the first meeting, back in August, when Ashby scored a comfortable 2-0 victory at Fountain Fresh Park.
Ashby have a fixtures backlog because of pitch problems at the NFU Sports Ground in Ashby together with good runs in the FA Vase and UCL Cup. This means that Saturday’s match will be played at Farley Way Stadium, home of Quorn FC. Ashby’s problems were not helped when their league match at AFC Mansfield, scheduled for Wednesday evening, was postponed because of a waterlogged pitch.
The newcomers are 15th in the league table with 24 points from 19 games, three points behind Wisbech but with no less than six matches in hand.
Their main man is Sam Grouse, the league’s joint leading marksman with 28 goals from 31 appearances. He scored both goals for Ashby in their last league match, a 6-2 defeat at leaders Sherwood Colliery, but last week they progressed to the next round of the league cup by beating Newark & Sherwood 3-2.

Club history
Ashby Ivanhoe were founded in 1948 and play their home games at the NFU Sports Ground, Lower Packington Road, Ashby de la Zouch, where they moved to in 2012 and purchased in 2021.
They had one of their most successful seasons in 2010/11 when they completed a league and cup double by winning their Leicestershire Senior League by nine points and also lifted the Coalville Charity Cup for the first time.
The 2013/14 season saw the first team achieve a long-term ambition when they won promotion to Step 6 of the pyramid, playing in the East Midlands Counties League the following season.
The 2016/17 season was the most memorable in the club’s history. For the first time they entered the FA Cup and knocked out higher-ranked opposition Quorn and Loughborough Dynamo before falling to Ilkeston.
In 2019/20 Ashby faced a fresh challenge when they were moved to the Midland Premier League Division One. In 2021/22 they secured their highest ever league position, finishing fourth and securing a place in the play-offs where they faced local rivals Stapenhill in the semi-finals, losing 4-2.
But last season, the club’s 75th anniversary, was one for the record books when they achieved promotion to Step 5.
Preview courtesy of Adrian Lynn