Haverhill Borough boss Harry Zachariou labels New Croft derby with Haverhill Rovers as ‘David and Goliath’ game

Their opponents are the unbeaten table-toppers, and although boss Harry Zachariou sees this as a ‘David and Goliath’ fixture, his Haverhill Borough side are relishing the chance to potentially inflict a first defeat on Rovers in tomorrow night’s derby (7.45pm).

There is no doubting the size of the task ahead of Zachariou’s young side; facing an experienced team whose goal was to blow the Thurlow Nunn League First Division North out of the water this term.

But the underdog tag is something Borough, who sit 16th, have worn all season. And asked what it would be like to put a ‘one’ in Rovers’ losses column, Zachariou, whose side also play for Rovers’ Under-18s, said: “That’s what we’re there to do.

“We’re not there to make up the numbers, we’re there to try and get a win.

“It is a David and Goliath game. They’re sitting top and haven’t lost, they’re a bunch of older, experienced players that have been playing in higher leagues, we’re a bunch of youngsters.

“But the boys are buzzing and I am as well. We’re looking forward to it and hopefully we can give a good display.

“Anything less than a win and we’re going to be disappointed with that because, whoever we’re playing against, we fancy our chances. We feel we have to tools to hurt anyone.”

Borough looked destined to head into the derby off the back of what would have been their fourth victory of the campaign, but they squandered a 3-1 lead at fifth-placed Framlingham Town on Saturday – a side who boast an unbeaten record at Baddingham Road.

Max Willet gave the Castlemen the lead after just five minutes, but Borough hit back when Illias Zachariou fired in from a corner.

The visitors then turned the contest on its head, scoring twice thanks to a Brandon McKay strike and a screamer from Theo Goddard, but the deficit was halved in the second half when Josh Lucraft scored from the spot.

And with five minutes remaining, Framlingham’s top-scorer Willett popped up with his second of the game to rescue a point for Liam Abraham’s outfit.

“It was two points dropped, 100 per cent,” said Zachariou.

“It’s a shame, but more importantly, I had seven 16 year olds start that game, and they’re learning and developing.

“They’ve gone toe-to-toe with Framlingham, away.

“We’re drawing games that we should be winning and we’re dropping the odd points, but that’s fine. I’ve got no problem with that because we’re learning.

“As much as we want to win and do well, we’ve got to remember what we’ve got here.

“We’ve got a bunch of kids playing Step 6 football and getting applauded by every manager and coach we play against going ‘wow, you’ve got a great little bunch there’.

“We’re better than our points show. You could quite easily add five or eight points to what we’ve got if we cut out silly little things, schoolboy errors, things they won’t be doing in the last 20 games of the season.”

Last season’s derbies, with Rovers having just been relegated down to Step 6 for the first time since 2007, ended with both town clubs tasting a victory each in high-scoring affairs.

After Borough shocked Rovers to win a 4-3 thriller on September 29 as the technical away side, the red half of Haverhill got their revenge with a 4-0 ‘away’ win on Ferbruary 23.