Sur

That gap defines how the club is talked about now, even as the Sur Sports Complex, 8,000 seats, still fills for the fixture.

The club traces itself to members who played under the name Al-Ittihad while working in Kuwait before returning home and re-forming in Sur; 1969 is given as the founding year. Locally the team is known as Asayid Al-Afiah, the Masters of Al-Afiah, after the district that gave them the name, and also as Al-Azraq Al-Sharqi, the Eastern Blue, for the colours they have carried since.

The best of it came early and then in bursts. Sur won the Sultan Qaboos Cup in 1973, then waited nearly two decades for a second, in 1992, before adding the league double of 1994–95 and 1995–96 — the only spell the club has held the national title. A third Sultan Cup followed in 2007, and a fourth in 2018–19, either side of a First Division title in 2010–11.

Said Al-Ruzaiqi is the name that still carries furthest from that era: he played two seasons at Sur before his Oman debut in 2014, when he scored a hat-trick against Kuwait. Mohammed Al-Mukhaini followed him through the club a little later, from 2014 to 2016, and went on to win 26 caps for the national side.