FA Trophy: Jimmy Dean seeking Oldham upset with Peterborough Sports

Jimmy Dean's own playing career in non-league football was ended by injury

Back in 1993, Oldham Athletic and Brotherhoods Engineering Works were a world apart in football terms.

The Latics were taking on Manchester United, Arsenal and Newcastle in the top flight of English football, while Brotherhoods were playing in the Peterborough & District League.

In the intervening years the gap closed and the Cambridgeshire club, called Peterborough Sports since 2001, will now take on Oldham in the third round of the FA Trophy - although the game has been postponed from Saturday to Tuesday evening.

Just 10 places separate Oldham, 21st in National League, and The Turbines, who are eighth in the division below and only two points outside the play-off places.

It has been a meteoric rise for Peterborough in recent seasons, with four promotions since manager Jimmy Dean took over for the 2015-16 campaign.

They defeated Alvechurch and Coalville Town - both of whom reached the FA Cup main draw this season - in the play-offs to win promotion from the Southern League Premier Division last term.

"I'm optimistic for what comes yet, I don't think we've run our course yet, I think there's more to come from us," Dean told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.

Oldham's Mike Milligan faced off against Manchester United in the 1993-94 Premier League

"As good a manager as anyone in non-league football" is how Darragh MacAnthony, chairman of League One side Peterborough United reportedly described Dean in an edition of his Hard Truth podcast.

But Dean has been handing out some hard truths to his own to his players following defeats in their last two National League North games, following a run of four successive wins and five in the previous six.

Last Saturday, they were beaten 3-0 at Buxton, a game he believes should have been postponed because of wintry conditions in the area.

"The worst bit was driving home in the snow. We don't have coaches at Peterborough Sports so you're driving home from the Peak District, trying to get home for the England game and there's black ice," he said.

On the Buxton match itself, he continued: "We were passive in possession, passive out of possession. We probably had the chances to do something, but in my opinion we got what we deserved.

"The last 20 minutes we downed tools we didn't show the heart for the fight. The performance really wasn't acceptable and I haven't been able to say that many times."

Oldham, by contrast, ended a run of seven games in all competitions without a win when they defeated Torquay United 3-2 at Boundary Park in front of a crowd of 5,615.

They lost their English Football League status last term and made a poor start to the season under six-times manager John Sheridan, who left by mutual consent in September.

He was replaced by former Everton defender David Unsworth, who promised big changes, and has brought in five new players since the beginning of November including striker Joe Nuttall, signed last week from Scunthorpe for an undisclosed fee.

Peterborough Sports defender Isaiah Bazeley came through ther youth system at Aston Villa

Dean acknowledges the possibility that "they might be too good", but is convinced there is no question of his team "downing tools" against the Latics.

"Obviously, the performance levels haven't been there this season [for Oldham] but we're dealing with a proper club, a proper team, and I can't wait to have a go at them," he said.

"We brought in a couple of players in the summer who have that mentality of 'you aren't better than us' and that has really helped us.

"If we turn up [at Oldham] with the mentality of passengers, 'it's a big club, it's a big ground', we'll be lambs to the slaughter.

"[But] If we turn up with the mentality that we can make a game of it and and everyone believes in that, we can give these a game.

"The last two defeats haven't helped but the form before that was excellent, we were playing some good stuff."

Dean will look to the experience of 36-year-old player-coach Michael Gash and the goal threat of Mark Jones, who has netted more than 100 times for the club since arriving in 2016-17.

He is understandably proud of the club's progress but victory over Oldham, in arguably the biggest game in the club's history, would be another level.

"When I was 10 years old, just starting watching football, they were in the first ever season of the Premier League. If they wished to do so, they are in a position to look down upon us because of where they've been," Dean added.

"We've had a lot smaller clubs look down their nose at us and they are two or three divisions behind us now. That kind of stuff doesn't bother us."