Exeter City come face-to-face with Cambridge United tonight (Tuesday) for the first time since the two sets met at Wembley in the 2008 Conference play-off final.
Since then, much has changed for both clubs and there will be two very different teams on show this evening. Sixth-placed Cambridge will start as favourites after a decent start to life back in the Football League, but City will travel with confidence having moved off the foot of the table with a 1-1 draw against Oxford United last weekend.
That game saw the return of David Noble to St James' Park, after he joined the club in a loan deal from Oldham Athletic. Manager Paul Tisdale could call on his experience tonight, especially if Matt Grimes misses out with a leg injury sustained against Oxford.
In his first spell with the club, Noble very much divided opinion, but there was no doubting his obvious delight at being back at the Park on Saturday.
"I have always stayed in touch with Tis ever since I left and there was an opportunity to come down," Noble said of his move. "I absolutely loved the time I was here before and I was keen to come back and play for a manager I totally respect and for a great club.
"It saddens me to see Exeter down this low, but the aim is to try and get the team up the table.
"I really loved my time here. We had one year that was really successful and the other year was not so successful.
"I gave everything when I was here and I will be doing the same again.
"It was great to get back out on the pitch and I was really thankful that I got a warm reception from the fans. It was much appreciated.
"I had a few good touches early on [at the weekend], which always helps, and then some not so good touches! But the crowd were great and I thank them for that."
It is perhaps a reflection of how the landscape of a football club can change so quickly that there are few familiar faces still at the club from when first spell in Devon ended in the summer of 2012. And those that Noble does recognise are no longer the fresh-faced schoolboys he remembers.
"There aren't too many," he said. "Sercs [Liam Sercombe] was obviously here when I was and Pat [Baldwin], [Matt] Grimesy and Christy [Pym] were both young lads and so was Jordan [Moore-Taylor], but that is about it.
"A lot of players have moved on and replaced with the young players and there are some superb young players here. But it's a hard thing when you have to use so many of them.
"It will be brilliant for them and their future careers to face this sort of pressure. We are bottom of the league, which is somewhere you don't want to be and it is a hard learning curve for them. But they will push on ten-fold from experiences like this."
The pressing need for Exeter to get that first win of the season is growing by the week. Although they played well against Oxford, the point they accrued leaves them as one of three teams on three points for the season and four points adrift of the teams immediately above them. But Noble is confident Exeter's fortunes will soon change.
"I don't think we will be down there for too long," he said. "I haven't seen the games before the Oxford one, but, against them, I thought we deserved to win.
"Although Oxford are down there as well, they are a team with a big budget and one that people would expect to see at the top end of the table and I am sure they expected it themselves.
"They were definitely second best on Saturday. It was a good performance, which was just lacking the three points."
Exeter City (from): Pym, Hamon; Butterfield, Woodman, Bennett, Baldwin, Ribeiro, Sercombe, Oakley, Keohane, Davies, Grimes, Moore-Taylor, Dawson, Cummins, Nichols, Wheeler, Riley-Lowe, Noble, Tillson, Jay, Pope, Watkins, Nicholls, Tisdale, Noble.
Doubtful: Wheeler, Grimes.
Unavailable: Baldwin, Reid (injured).
