The foe you know - AFC Wimbledon's Barcham and Parrett

In this edition of ‘The foe you know’, the series where we look at former Spurs players who now represent this weekend’s opponents, we shine the spotlight on two former Spurs Academy stars who featured briefly for our first team and have now found their way to the Dons – Andy Barcham and Dean Parrett.

Attacker Andy Barcham has been a regular for AFC Wimbledon in domestic action this season, yet Sunday’s match won’t be his first trip to Wembley for a Spurs game in 2017-18.

As a lifelong fan of the club, he was in the crowd when we beat Real Madrid 3-1 on a famous night in the Champions League back in November. This time, he’ll be looking to orchestrate our downfall on the pitch.

Born in Basildon, he emerged through our youth ranks and made his senior debut for us from the start in a League Cup fourth round tie with Port Vale at White Hart Lane in November, 2006, which we eventually won 3-1 after extra time.

Above: Andy Barcham on AFC Wimbledon duty.

A regular goalscorer for our Under-18s, he was also a handful in the reserves but didn't get any regular senior football under his belt until a loan move to Leyton Orient in 2007-08, where he played 25 games, scoring once.

A further loan spell followed at Gillingham before he made the permanent switch to the Kent club in 2009, having made just the one senior appearance for us. He's since worn the colours of Scunthorpe United and Portsmouth before arriving at Wimbledon in 2015, where he’s on 14 goals in 106 appearances prior to Sunday’s clash at the national stadium.

Fellow ex-Spur Dean Parrett came on to score a stoppage-time winner against our Development Squad in the Checkatrade Trophy back in October, but the midfielder is unlikely to feature this weekend, having been sidelined with a groin problem for the last two-and-a-half months.

The midfielder joined our Academy set-up in early 2007 and made good progress in the youth team before stepping up to feature in both legs of our UEFA Cup round of 32 defeat to Shakhtar Donetsk in February, 2009.

Above: Dean Parrett in action for the Dons.

Always looking to get forward, most frequently from a central midfield position, he then embarked on a string of loan spells in the Football League with Aldershot Town, Plymouth Argyle and Charlton Athletic and, after making a handful of appearances for each side, returned to form part of our Europa League squad for the 2011-12 campaign. There, he got two further substitute appearances under his belt, away to PAOK Salonika and Rubin Kazan, as we finished third in the group stage and were knocked out, before heading back out on loan with Yeovil Town and, latterly, Swindon Town.

He left us for Stevenage in 2013 and, having scored nine goals in 78 appearances for the Hertfordshire side, joined the Dons ahead of the 2016-17 campaign. He’s currently on six goals in 54 games for our opponents this weekend, one of which came in the aforementioned Checkatrade Trophy match against our Development Squad earlier this term, when he snatched a 4-3 victory for his side in stoppage time.

That match represented the first time a Spurs team had met AFC Wimbledon in their current guise, but we look forward to locking horns with them at senior level this weekend as we take our first steps in this season's FA Cup. Sunday’s third round tie kicks-off at 3pm.