Graphic: Four matches to decide day of destiny

Derbies have always lent an added piquancy to sport; football is littered with rivalries that trace their origins back more than a century. Rugby's equivalent of Manchester United versus Manchester City or Everton against Liverpool is Gloucester and Bath. The clubs meet today in a high-stakes top-of-the-table clash on the final day of the Guinness Premiership regular season.

Bristol were included in the West Country mix before their fortunes faded, but for Gloucester and Bath supporters, an encounter is perceived as a clash of cultures, the refined elegance of the Roman city set against that of the more rough and ready appeal of “Glaws”, to use their vernacular. Or, as Ed Shaw, the editor of ShedHead, the Gloucester fanzine, said: “Bath is described as that beautiful Georgian city compared with that s**thole of Gloucester. They tend to make much of our supposed predilection for sheep.”

While Gloucester do indeed boast a Lamb, the shimmering talent of Ryan the fly half, the days of feeling second-class citizens has long gone. The rivalry between both supporters and players has always been intense and few have played for both clubs. Mike Tindall, Iain Balshaw and, from next season, Olly Barkley have made the move to Gloucester from Bath, Balshaw via Leeds, while Rob Fidler made the opposite journey. It is a new trend, an adjunct of professionalism.

From the supporters' point of view the ribaldry, which never spills over into violence, is part of the occasion. “We would never refer to Bath as the scum. Let's just say that their supporters are not the sort of people we would pick as friends,” Shaw, who watched his first Kingsholm game in 1959, said. “I was recently compiling a list of collective nouns for Premiership fans and I came up with a 'supercilious of Bath supporters'. Bath have always had a high regard for themselves and a perceived superior edge.

“There is always one of them who takes it upon himself to stand among 50 or so of us in the Shed and deliberately start braying 'Come on Baaarth.' We respond like sheep, with 'Baaath.' You do have to respect them, though. In the amateur days we called them the best team money could buy.”

Commitment was, and is, no less vivid on the field. Fidler, Gloucester born and bred, spent nine years there before moving to Bath, where he played for another 4½ seasons before being released last November. “Bath home or away, you always picked it up a notch or two,” Fidler, who, at 33, is looking for another club, said.

“One match me and John Mallett [the former Bath prop] spent the whole game knocking lumps out of each other. When I first went back with Bath I wanted to win just as much. But their fans cheered me whilst booing the rest of the Bath team. However, after we won a couple of times, they turned on me, too.”

Simon Halliday, the former England wing and now merchant banker, was part of the glittering Bath side who swept all before them 20 years or so ago. “Gloucester fans were so angry when we kept beating them. They used to find out what jobs we did so that when we played at Kingsholm the Shed could hurl insults at us,” he said. “Gareth Chilcott was a French polisher and they would shout at him, 'Slap some on, baldy.' Jerry Guscott was a bus driver and they'd say, 'Hey Jerry, had a crash lately?' They really needed to get a life.' ”

— Since leagues began in 1987-88, Bath and Gloucester have met 44 times in all competitions

— Gloucester have won 11 games and Bath 30, with three draws

— Of the 23 matches at Kingsholm, Gloucester have won ten and Bath 13

— Of the 20 meetings at The Rec, Gloucester have won once, Bath 16 times, with three draws

— In the 1990 Cup final at Twickenham, Bath won 48-6

— Gloucester have never won in the league away to Bath