Today’s Angus derby will be the most important Brechin City boss Ray McKinnon has been involved in, he admitted.
“There were the the cup games last season,” McKinnon pointed out.
“And every derby feels like the biggest at the time.
“But at this stage of the season, with both teams going for promotion, I’d have to say this is the biggest one I’ve been involved in.
“Glebe Park will be jumping.”
There could of course be an even more important one (or rather, two) to come.
“Mind you, we could still meet in the play-offs, of course,” he said.
League One has become the most competitive division in Scotland this season, McKinnon believes.
“There are so many teams in the hunt for promotion,” he explained. “And there’s nobody without anything to play for.
“We went 16-games undefeated but we’re still only fourth, so that tells you everything about the league.
“I can see there being twists and turns every week from now on.”
McKinnon is sticking by the one game at a time mentality that served City so well on that long unbeaten stretch, but he knows the prize of back-to-back wins.
“If we beat Forfar and win on Tuesday night, we’ll go above them,” he said.
“We lost two freak goals at Peterhead last week and it’s just a case of taking it on the chin and moving on.
“We’ll be ready to go again.”
Two un-named players will miss out with injuries, but the quartet of Paul McLean, Craig Molloy, Steven Jackson and Gary Fusco will return.
Dick Campbell has been involved in more Angus derbies than he cares to remember, but he needs no reminding of the significance of the next one.
“I still look forward to them just as much,” the veteran Forfar manager said.
“Bring it on. You’ve got to give credit to Brechin for the long unbeaten run they were on, but they’re still four points behind us and we want to make that seven.
“We’ve beaten Stranraer and Morton on the last two Saturdays so we’ll be going there full of confidence.
“Somebody threw a statistic at me the the other day that over the 29 games that have been played in the division this season, we’ve been in the top three for 26 of them.
“That says it all about how consistent we’ve been.”
Campbell added: “I named the team to the boys at training last night.
“I’m not concerning myself about the opposition. It’s all about how we perform.
“Yes, we respect them, but we certainly don’t worry about them.
“That would be the same if we were playing Celtic or Rangers.
“You can’t hide at this stage of the season. This is the time when the men stand up and be counted.”
Campbell said it was “sensational” that their under-20s look like winning their league, which includes full-time clubs.
One of the stars has been Andrew Kerr, and his reward will be a place on the bench for today’s match.
Campbell said: “The young boy’s got three hat-tricks in three games. he’s only 18 and he deserves his place.”