MATCH PREVIEW: Chippenham Town vs Bath City | Friday 26th December| National League South
A4 Derby marks the height of festive football.
CTFC play host to local rivals Bath City for Boxing Day Football, in which we expect a bumper crowd.
The oppostion
Bath City FC known as ‘The Romans’ due to the cities’ history with the period, were founded in 1889. Last season City finished 15th in the table, following a poor start to the season that ultimately saw the departure of their long serving manager Jerry Gill, and the appointment of their current manager Darren Way. This season they are sitting in 17th position, still in the FA Trophy and in the Somerset Cup.
Bath City first joined the Conference in 1990, with seven seasons in that division before relegation to the Southern League during 1997. The Romans returned to the Conference, South this time, in 2007. In just three Conference South campaigns Bath were promoted via the Playoffs in 2010, going up to the same league as teams such as Wrexham, York and Grimsby.
Relegation followed a couple of seasons later and City have stayed in the Division ever since, with two playoff campaigns in that time, with defeats against Dorking in 2020 and Braintree in 2023.
Fixture History
Chippenham vs Bath on Boxing Day is always a spectacle, with the first Boxing Day NLS meeting coming in 2018 and a 2-2 draw at the TSS, with James Guthrie and Nick McCootie netting for CTFC. Ross Stearn and Ryan Brunt, both familiar to us, scored to ensure a level game.
Surprisingly, Boxing Day at home has been dry in recent seasons, with our last home point coming in 2020/21. Twerton Park seems to be a happier hunting ground, undefeated in our last three trips, with two impressive wins in 2022 and in the summer of 2025
Familiar Faces
A quirk of non-league football is the shared player base between rivals, and this rivalry is no different.
Bath City’s current squad include a total of seven players that formerly played for CTFC, with ours also containing seven.
City’s seven include Jordan Tilson and Ollie Tomlinson who both had short loan spells with us from Exeter and Torquay respectively. A further two are Owen Windsor and Brad Ash, both forwards who played for us in the seasons following COVID.
The final three were all a part of our 2021/22 playoff run, being Danny Greenslade, Luke Russe and Kieran Parselle. Between them, they have 376 appeareances for City in the league.
CTFC also have seven former City players. Billy Phillips, new to us at CTFC spent a portion of last season on loan with Bath. Tom Mehew had two loan spells with The Romans before he joined us, on loan from his boyhood club Bristol Rovers. Rounding out the loans, Aaron Amadi-Holloway featured five times for Bath City in 2011, on loan from Bristol City.
Both of our First Team goalkeepers have previous with Bath City, as Will Henry joined the Romans after his Swindon Town departure, but with gametime limited he joined us for the 2021/22 season and has not looked back since. Our number 29 Massimo Sardo departed City this summer, having been a feature of their first team for a couple of seasons.
The final two are Freddie Grant, as he played eight league games during the 2020/21 season, and Sol Wanjau-Smith who signed for Bath in 2024, and departed this summer.
Supporter Information
Tickets for the match on are sale online via our INTIX page, with our recommendation to pre-purchase online to be quicker through the Turnstile.
Turnstiles will open at 12.30pm
We would like to confirm Parking arrangements for Boxing Day 2025’s home match against Bath City.
There is no car parking available at the Football Club, therefore we request that supporters of both sides park at Sheldon School (SN14 6HJ), on Hardenhish Lane.
As we have limited Blue Badge Holder parking spaces, they are only available on a first come first serve basis. Please email Tina – Community@chippenhamtownnfc.club for more details.
See you in Chippenham with bragging rights at stake!
