Peterborough Sports boss takes his ex-Peterborough League team to tackle an ex-Premier League club in the FA Trophy

Dean even understands why Latics’ fans bombarded his club with barbs as soon as the draw was made!

Oldham were founder members of the Premier League in 1992 at a time when Sports were playing in Division Two of the Peterborough & District League – a full 12 leagues lower!

Now, 30 years later Sports are just a division below Oldham. Indeed there are only 11 places between the clubs in the English football ladder as Oldham are fourth from bottom of the National League and Sports are seventh in National League North.

The hosts will still be hot favourites to win the tie.

"It’s a big ask for us,” Sports boss Jimmy Dean admitted.

"Obviously they have fallen on hard times, but compared to us they are still a massive club.

"I saw a load of their fans having a pop at us after the draw was made, but I fully understand that.

"It would have been a surprise if they did know who were were! Anyway we’ve had far smaller clubs than Oldham look down their noses at us over the years and it’s never bothered us.

"We just get on with the football and for me it’s a great privilege to be taking a team to Bounday Park.

"When I started watching football regularly in the early 1990s Oldham were in the Premier League.

"They had Joe Royle as manager, Rick Holden on the wing and Andy Ritchie up front.

"It was a great team to watch and in recent years they’ve had Paul Scholes as manager and now they have David Unsworth in charge who I also used to watch play when he was at Everton.

"I caught a little bit of their game on the TV last weekend (a 3-2 home win over Torquay), but I was mainly looking out to see if Unsworth mentioned they had a big cup game against us next week!

"Seriously though it’s a great draw for us and we will go up and have a go. We have nothing to lose. We will enjoy the occasion no matter what.”

Dean has more selection issues than he would have liked. Top scorer Jordan Nicholson is still feeling his way back after recovering from a broken leg, while another star forward Dion Sembie-Ferris missed last weekend’s National League North defeat at Buxton with a knock.

The overall performance in a 3-0 reverse also gave Dean food for thought, but he’s likely to stick with the tried and tested players for such a big game.

Striker Mark Jones missed the Buxton trip because of work commitments, but should be back on Saturday.

"We might have rushed Jordan back a bit too quickly,” Dean admitted. “He started last weekend, but he wasn’t himself on a tricky surface so we took him off early in the second-half.

"Jordan will be involved at Oldham, but we have to be careful with him as he’s such an important player for us.

"Dion came on as a sub last week so should be okay and it’s good to have Mark back.”