Oxford United make their first visit to Accrington Stanley’s Fraser Eagle Stadium tomorrow.

The npower League Two match has special significance because of the two clubs’ overlapping history.

Oxford United first gained their place in the Football League in 1962 after Accrington went bust and had to resign from the League just a few months earlier, opening up a place when it was otherwise so hard to get elected.

And five years ago, the two clubs bypassed each other.

Accrington won promotion to the Football League by winning the Conference, just as Oxford were heading in the other direction.

With long-serving manager John Coleman in charge, Stanley have progressed year on year and are pushing hard for promotion.

They slipped to eighth place last Saturday, but are very hopeful that they can claim one of the play-off places.

Even automatic promotion is not out of the question as, compared with some of their rivals, they do not have the toughest-looking run-in.

After taking on Oxford, they have Bradford and Barnet at home, Shrewsbury away – which will be difficult – and Burton away to finish, which will depend on whether Burton are safe.

The club have had a lot of financial problems, with the players not being paid for a couple of months, though that seems to have been sorted.

If anything, it appears to have galvanised the team.

“I know a lot about John, he’s been in the game a number of years and he’s improved and improved and improved,” said U’s boss Chris Wilder “He’s got a great knowledge of football in that area, and builds a team that works very hard for each other and plays decent football.”

What is Wilder looking for from his players in these last five games?

“We’ve got a mixed bag of games against teams at the top and teams at the bottom,” he said.

“It’s a pretty interesting fact that we’ve done OK, against the teams at the top – I think we’re ranked about fourth or fifth against them – and against the bottom sides we’ve probably not done enough.

“In terms of quality and organisation, we’re more than a match for the top sides, and hopefully that counts against Accrington, Chesterfield and Shrewsbury.

In the other two games (against Barnet and Lincoln) there are other qualities and aspects you have to have to win games, to be successful in a season. And that’s where we’ve let ourselves down this season.

“Whether it’s a reserve team game against Kidlington or a league game against Chesterfield, we want to put on a performance.

“In aspects of my team last Saturday, I was absolutely made up, because we showed a fantastic reaction after Bury, the way we dominated the game, and the way we played.

“Individual errors cost us. They’re the things we’re looking to improve on – cutting out the silly mistakes.

“Winning games of football between now and the end of the season . . . that’s what it’s all about.”