This Sunday sees Chester FC host Tranmere Rovers in a league game for the first time in almost 25 years.
It should be a packed to the rafters, regardless of the fact that it is no longer a Football League fixture and the two sides are now a part of non-league football's top tier.
But, as has been the case for the Blues' cross-border derbies with Wrexham in recent seasons, an overbearing approach to ensuring order between two sets of fans by the powers that be has ensured that, once again, a fixture that should be the hottest ticket in town on Sunday will be just another derby that has had the life squeezed out of it.
But why? This is the fifth tier of English football and a game between two teams from areas that aren't divided by deep-rooted political or religious differences. This is not the Old Firm derby, this is not Palmeiras v Corinthians or Fenerbahce v Galatasaray. It's a clash in the National League for crying out loud.
Thankfully, the ludicrous 'bubble match' that Chester and Wrexham fans have become so accustomed to in recent seasons hasn't been enforced this time around, but this week's statement from Cheshire Police that disorder won't be tolerated made for uncomfortable reading for me.
During the reverse fixture Merseyside Police, well versed in policing crowds much larger than those at a Tranmere v Chester match, had a presence, but that was all it was. There was no overzealous approach to policing and both sets of fans were able to mingle inside a 'fan zone' and we even able to eat from the same hog roast. Imagine that.
Merseyside Police should be commeded on how they policed the game, they saw it for what it was and were firm but fair. Years of keeping a watchful eye over Liverpool and Everton derbies, Aintree Races, Creamfields and Saturday night's on Concert Square suitably prepared them for how to cope with crowds.
But Cheshire Police's warning to fans prior to this Sunday, for me, can only serve to heighten tension between two sets of fans and needlessly officious. The suggestion of trouble and the limited amount of tickets allocated to the visitors has, as with the bubble match, created an issue that isn't really there.
Every single football club in the world has a minority with the propensity for causing trouble, but that is all they are, a minority. To offer up such heavy-handed measures where 99.9% of fans are only there to watch the action on the pitch is, quite frankly, embarrassing.
It's not even as if the Lookers Vauxhall Stadium is in the centre of the city, it is pretty much as far away from general weekend footfall in Chester's streets as it could possibly be without completely crossing the other side of the border.
I understand the worry about heavy numbers of 'rival' football fans in the centre of town before and after the game, but don't we already have experience of policing large numbers of alchohol-fuelled racegoers in the city centre following a Saturday meeting at the Roodee?
We are football fans, not hooligans. The powers that be need to realise this fact and treat fans like adults, not children being supervised on a school trip.
We have had visits from the likes of Leeds United, Nottingham Forest and Manchester City over the past 15 years or so, but none of those fixture came under as much scrutiny as clashes between Wrexham and Tranmere.
A police presence at matches is, and always will be, a must. But it is time that these games, what should be hotly-contested clashes in a cauldron of noise, should be removed from the shackles of fussy and expensive policing before they are irrevocably damaged and their character lost forever. Sadly, that moment is edging ever closer.
We are adults, please treat us as such.
