Scunnthorpe are the visitors to Sixfields on Saturday.....yes I know i've spelt it wrong but this site doesn't permit me to use the C word!! From now on I shall refer to them as The Iron or United or whatever else I can think of!!
United currently sit 14th in the table, one win, one defeat and three draws in their five league games so far. The win came in their last outing, a 1-0 victory over Tranmere, their defeat came at home to Swindon with a 3-1 scoreline. Draws against Rochdale, Walsall and Sutton. They fell to a 1-0 defeat at Barrow in the EFL Cup, and lost 3-0 at home to Manchester City U21's in the Papa Johns Trophy.
As recently as 2011 The Iron played in the Championship, but a decline since then saw them finish 22nd in League 2 last year, their lowest position since 2004. They are managed by Neil Cox, he's seen them suffer defeat in 31 of his 58 games in charge.
Soccerbase is showing a high turnover of players in the season with at least 15 players leaving in the summer (including former Cobbler Kevin Van Veen) and 11 coming in, so they are a team in transition. Loan players in the shape of Hayden Hackney (Middlesbrough) and Harry Wood (Hull) joined on deadline day, and they join up with highly rated Jake Scrimshaw from Bournemouth. The team has just three goals between them this season.
Head to head between the sides sees us having met 67 times, The Iron lead the way with 26 wins to our 22. OF the 10 previous games at Sixfields they have walked off with all three points on 4 occasions and have shared the spoils on three others. Last time out though they were sent back to Humberside on the wrong end of a 3-0 defeat. That game in January 2020 saw returning Van Veen receive a first half red card, and two Vadaine Oliver goals plus a Sam Hoskins penalty won us the day. Only three months earlier we'd been the ones tasting a 3-0 defeat with Van Veen scoring for The Iron and Oliver sent off for us!! In the prior meeting at Sixfields back in 2017 Charlie Goode appeared as a late sub for Scunny in their 3-0 win on our patch.
Tom Reeves is our first year EFL ref, three games this season have seen him book 12 players and send off one.
You could get around the c**t issue by referring to them as Van Veen Utd I guess!
