Mark Robinson is relishing coming up against his Northampton Town counterpart Jon Brady tomorrow night - with relations having dramatically improved between the two since they first met at academy level!
Having beaten Charlton Athletic at The Valley, to progress to round two of the Carabao Cup, Robbo will be aiming to take AFC Wimbledon the furthest we have been in the competition since we returned to the league in 2011 with victory at Sixfields Stadium.
To achieve that, Robbo will first have to get past his old adversary, Australian-born Brady – who in recent times has also progressed from being an under-18s coach to taking charge of first team affairs. The pair are pictured bumping fists before our dramatic 1-0 victory over Northampton at Plough Lane in March.
“I know Jon really well,” said Robbo. “We’ve become good friends, but that wasn’t the case when we first met to be honest! It’s quite funny! Our first couple of meetings, Jon and I didn’t get on too well. We had a couple of little bust-ups on the touchline. We had very different styles.
“We’d never met. In the first game we had a little bit of a bust-up over something – the second one we had a bigger bust-up! Then we decided to sit down and just chat and over that he’s become a really good friend. He’s someone I’ve got loads of respect for.
“When he came into academy football, he was someone that the league really needed. He brought a realism to it. It was such a test to play his teams and, in the end, if I’m honest, he made the league better because of his approach to games. He ended up making our players better.
“He’s someone I respect a lot, but tomorrow night we need to turn them over!”
Wimbledon go into the cup clash again with a fully fit squad to choose from, for a game which kicks-off at 7.45pm on Tuesday evening.
You can see the full preview with Head Coach Mark Robinson below, via the link to our official YouTube channel.