HISTORY will be made if Colchester United can beat MK Dons this afternoon.

Carl Marston

HISTORY will be made if Colchester United can beat MK Dons this afternoon.

The Essex club have never won their first four league games at the start of a season, since they joined the Football League in 1950, but they will make it four-on-the-bounce this term if they can triumph in Milton Keynes.

The current run of three league wins, at the start of the season, has only been matched twice before - by Phil Parkinson's men five years ago (2004-05) and by Bobby Roberts' side of 1977-78.

In 2004-05, the U's rattled up home wins over Stockport (3-2) and Peterborough (2-1), following a rip-roaring 3-0 win at Sheffield Wednesday on the opening day. They lost their fourth fixture 2-1 at Chesterfield.

And 32 years ago, United also started with a bang, thanks to an away win at Gillingham (3-1) and then back-to-back home successes over Bradford City (3-0) and Chester (2-0). Again match No. 4 was a stumbling block, with a 1-0 defeat at Tranmere.

The U's did not go on to gain promotion in either of these two seasons. Roberts' men finished eighth in the old Third Division, 13 points adrift of champions Wrexham, while a couple of good cup runs did not help the U's league campaign under Parkinson. They eventually finished 15th.

You have to go back 71 seasons, to the 1938-39 campaign, to find the one and only time that a Colchester United team has won their first four league fixtures, when they were a non-league outfit in the Southern League.

In only their second season as a professional club, they won their first six games in the Southern League, including an 8-1 trouncing of Yeovil and Petters United (now Yeovil Town).