Two teams come into this weekend's game with contrasting midweek Cup fortunes against teams from a higher Division. Having drawn their opening game at Port Vale, Rovers tested themselves against Championship team Crystal Palace. After holding the Eagles to 1-1 at the end of Extra Time the 4-1 Penalty shoot-out result was emphatic.

Meanwhile Crewe had a satisfactory 2-1 home win over Brighton on Saturday but went down 3-0 to Hull City in the Cup. Rovers should approach the game with a good degree of confidence that they can beat the Railwaymen.

This season is something of a transition for the Midlands team. In June 1983, having finished second-from-bottom of the old Fourth Division, little Crewe Alexandra appointed Dario Gradi as their new manager.

It was the most inspired decision in the club's history and the reverberations have been felt around English football ever since. The Milan-born manager's much-feted ability to produce top-class young players is part of the legend of the game.

David Platt, Geoff Thomas, Rob Jones, Neil Lennon, Danny Murphy, Robbie Savage, Dean Ashton - they were all put through the Crewe system masterminded by Gradi. Now, 24 years after his project began, Gradi will gradually hand over the reins to another man.

Gradi commented, "I have been doing the same job for 15 years and I have thoroughly enjoyed it, but I'm looking forward to a change and the challenge that having to get results for a first-team brings."

"In my time at Crewe, we have been in this division five times and last season's 13th-placed finish was our lowest league position since I came here. So we know we have a lot to do to improve this year and we've got an idea of what needs to be done."

"We are almost where we wanted to be squad-wise. It was disappointing to lose Luke Varney to Charlton for £2.5m, but that is an accepted way of life for Crewe.

Replacing his goals will not come easy, but we have one or two up-and-coming strikers who will get the chance to show what they can do. There is always the opportunity at a development-based club like ours that someone will come through and surprise you - and we hope that continues. We're Crewe - it is what we have done for such a long time and is what we will carry on doing."

Looking at the history of this week-end's opposition, Crewe Alexandra were formed in 1877 as Crewe Football Club as a separate organisation from the successful Crewe Cricket Club. Crewe Football Club played their first ever match, against North Staffs, the same year, the match ended 1-1. In 1884, Crewe Alexandra's first match in the FA Cup was against Queens Park of Glasgow, losing 10-0.

Crewe were one of the founding members of Division 2 in 1892, having previously been members of the Football Alliance, but became a non-league side after only five seasons. The following year the club managed to sign all their players as professionals. They rejoined the Football League in the 1920s, during which time a new record of 15,102 packed into Gresty Road to watch Crewe entertain local rivals Stoke City. The Potters won the game 2-0.

Crewe earned their first honours by winning the Welsh Cup in 1936 and 1937, before being barred from entering (not least since they were not in Wales). In 1936, Herbert Swindells scored his 100th League goal for Crewe Alexandra. He would go on to score a record 126 goals for the club - a record that still stands today.

1955 saw Crewe embark on a sequence where they did not win away from home for 56 matches. The dismal run ended with a 1-0 win at Southport. One of Crewe's most famous matches took place against Spurs in the FA Cup. A new record attendance of 20,000 saw lowly Crewe hold Spurs to a 2-2 draw. Bert Llewellyn and Merfyn Jones scored for the Railwaymen. In the replay, Tottenham won convincingly 13-2 - still a record defeat for the club. Llewellyn and Nev Coleman scored for Crewe at White Hart Lane.

1961 saw Crewe's most notable win in their history, Jimmy McGuigan's side defeated Chelsea 2-1 in the FA Cup at Stamford Bridge. That particular Chelsea side contained former Crewe player Frank Blunstone, Jimmy Greaves, Peter Bonetti and Terry Venables. The Crewe goals were scored by Billy Stark and Barrie Wheatley. Spurs won by a more modest 5-1 in the Fourth Round.

In 1963, Crewe gained promotion for the first time in their history with a 1-0 win over Exeter City. Frank Lord became the local hero, scoring the only goal in front a crowd of 9,807. Lord also holds the record for most hat-tricks for the club - he amassed eight hat-tricks during his time at Gresty Road.

A year later, Terry Harkin scored a record 35 league goals for a season. 1977 saw Tommy Lowry play his record-breaking 475th and last game for the Railwaymen. 1979 would see manager Warwick Rimmer's most notable signing when Bruce Grobbelaar joined Crewe and played his first match against Wigan Athletic. During the season he would score from the penalty spot against York City and kept 8 clean-sheets in his 24 matches played. In the same year the club went a record 15 matches without winning at Gresty Road.

The period from the 1950s to the early 1980s were generally not a successful time for the Alex, and few would argue with Michael Palin's comment, in the 1979 BBC Great Railway Journeys of the World documentary when, in a shot over Gresty Road filmed from the roof of the adjacent Rail House he described Crewe as "like those other railway towns, Swindon and Doncaster, possessed of a football team which is perpetually propping up the bottom of the Fourth Division".

In June 1983, Crewe appointed Milan-born Dario Gradi as manager. At that time, Crewe had again just avoided being voted out of the Football League. Gradi quickly gained a reputation for developing young talent, Gradi let Steve Walters become the youngest ever player to pull on a Crewe shirt: aged just 16 years and 119 days he played against Peterborough United on 6 May.

Gradi's efforts paid off in 1989 when Crewe won promotion to the Third Division. They went back down two years later, but were promoted again in 1994. In the same year, Neil Lennon became the first Crewe Alexandra player to gain an International cap for 60 years when he was selected to play for Northern Ireland against Mexico.

Gradi then led his charges to the unprecedented height of Division One in 1997, after victory over Brentford in the Division Two playoff final, and kept his team there until 2002, despite a club income on which many more lowly clubs could not survive.

After one season in the Division Two the club were promoted back to Division One at the end of the 2002-03 season, having finished in second place; the first time the club had finished in the top two of any division.

Although managing to retain their place in the renamed Championship in the 2003-04 season, at the start of the 2004-05 season they were rated one of the likeliest teams to be relegated. In the event, they put in a good showing in the first half of the season, but after selling Dean Ashton to Norwich City for a record £3 million in the January 2005 transfer window.

Crewe failed to win any more games until the final match of the season, when they defeated Coventry City 2-1 and narrowly escaped relegation on goal difference, Crewe having a Goal Difference of -20 and Gillingham -21.

The following year they were not so fortunate. Despite a good run towards the end of the season, they were relegated; During Gradi's control, the club has gained a strong reputation for its youth policy, and gained official status as an FA Youth Academy. By concentrating on developing its own players the club has remained profitable (a rare thing in lower division football at the time) by selling them on after they have gained experience with Crewe. The Academy is known to stress technical excellence, which accords with Gradi's aim to have his sides play attractive, passing football.

Players who have passed through the ranks at Crewe include the England international players Geoff Thomas, David Platt and Rob Jones, Welshman Robbie Savage, and Northern Ireland internationals Neil Lennon and Steve Jones (Platt was the most successful, totalling more than £20 million in transfers and captaining the England team).

All these were youngsters signed from other clubs, but Gradi has also had considerable success in nurturing Crewe's own trainees - notably full England internationals Danny Murphy and Seth Johnson, under-21 England international Dean Ashton and Wales international David Vaughan.

On 20 April 2007 Crewe Alexandra announced that, as of 1 July 2007, Gradi would take up a new role as the club's Technical Director whilst gradually allowing newly appointed first-team coach Steve Holland control of the team.

In total there have been only 17 matches between the two teams, remarkable for clubs who have skirted the nether regions of the League for so long. Alex having won 8 times has double the number of victories recorded by Rovers, with five stalemates. In the West Country the record is all square with 3 wins, 3 draws and 3 defeats.

The first time the teams met was on 19 October 1963 when the Railwaymen ran out 2-1 winners; they thumped Rovers in the return game 4-1 at Gresty Road.

Rovers' next trip to the Midlands team saw Alex run up a 6-1 score line, by far the biggest score between the two teams. Since then there has never been more than a two goal difference and no more than two goals scored by either team.

Perhaps Rovers fondest memory of their games against Crewe would be the Play-Off semi-finals in 1995 where both games were tied but Rovers won on the away goals rule.

On Wednesday evening Hull City ended Crewe's hopes of an extended run in this season's Carling Cup with a 3-0 win at the Alexandra Stadium. The Tigers took the lead a minute before the interval after Crewe were punished for a handling offence at a corner. Michael Bridges saw his first effort save by Ben Williams but he was handily placed to tuck in the rebound.

Then against the run of play, Hull City doubled their advantage with a splendid strike from midfielder Richard Garcia on 55 minutes. It was a wonderful strike from the former West Ham youngster.

The third goal was rather a soft one as defender Chris McCready and keeper Ben Williams seemingly leaving it for each other and allowed Stephen McPhee to nip in and poke his shot over the line.

After the game, Dario Gradi told the club's official web-site: "We learnt quite a lot from tonight. We were not too upset with the overall performance, because we made some chances and with a bit more experience we may have taken one or two of them but I think we had three up there, who had about five or six appearances between them."

"Then we have lost the game from two set plays and a mistake. We didn't mark properly from the corner and then the second one we didn't recover the ball well enough from our free-kick. That is something we will need to address and we will.

"The mistake we cannot do anything about. You are in the hands of the players there. They have not got to be pushed off the ball and make a decision there, so that is a worry. I think most defenders in this league make mistakes, that is the quality of the league."

"So we have got a bit to work on but we were not all at sea and played some decent football and made chances, which gives us a bit of encouragement.

He added: "We kept at it and kept going right until the end because the spirit of the players is good. They always give effort but we are always looking for more."

Meanwhile he told the club's official web-site that they have another possible striker target following Plymouth Argyle's decision not to let Nick Chadwick leave Home Park. Crewe have been priced out of any possible deal for the former Everton youngster, but admits that there is another striker top of our priority list to go along with the purchase of Lee Barnard on an extended loan.

In the wake of losing Nicky Maynard through injury, he says that the all the staff are going through the list and that a whole host of strikers have been discussed already, but nothing is imminent unless Spurs and Barnard's agent can come to some compromise over some financial matters.

"Plymouth have indicated that they want to hang on to Nick Chadwick and we cannot really afford him anyway. That is the fee they would want and the wages. That one is now dead, "

"We do have our eye on another one to go along with the lad from Spurs. That one could still happen. We are not totally sure we could get him, but we would be hopeful of him coming to us. There is a chance with that one and we'll see what develops.

"We have a list of strikers, and I'm sure if you asked Steve and Neil then they would tell you that they have probably discussed every available striker in the country. We have been linked with a number of strikers but they are just names.

"We have enquired about Chadwick and that is now over, and have been keen on Barnard for a while. Then we have another one, who we would be keen to bring here if we could."

The vociferous fans at the Mem should be treated to an entertaining game on Saturday with both teams looking to play attractive attacking football. An early home win for Paul Trollope's team would carry on the fine form from last season which saw them storm through the play-offs.

Written by Gerry Prewett