League fixtures announced
Madness though it is, but on one of the warmest days of the summer, we are now able to announce our league fixtures for the new season.
We knew already that our first competitive fixture would be away to Evesham in the extra preliminary round of the FA Cup on the first Saturday of August, but now we can fully update you with when our league matches will be.
We start on Saturday 10 August with a home fixture against Mossley, a team we managed a league double over last season - a Patrick Mazurkiewicz double did the business in the home fixture last time out.
We’ll be heading to Manchester a fair bit next season. Three of the four newbies in the league hail from the city of Lowry and Morrissey. Atherton Collieries, Wythenshawe and Wythenshawe Town join Mossley, Stalybridge, Trafford and Avro in making up the Manchester contingent.
Liverpool’s number is a little diminished this season after the promotion of Prescot Cables via the play-offs last time out. We’ll head there or thereabouts to play City of Liverpool, Bootle, Runcorn and Widnes.
But what about the derbies? Well, there’s plenty of them. We go to Stafford Rangers on Tuesday 13 August – a game which sandwiches our Mossley opener and our second home game against another Staffordshire opponent, Chasetown on 17 August.
This is the current schedule, though it’s well worth noting that the Chasetown game will only happen if both ourselves and Chasetown get dumped out the FA Cup.
Excellent. So, are you keeping up? The Hanley fixtures are on 19 October (away) and 15 February (home) while this season it’s the Kidsgrove games that get the Bank Holiday slots for Boxing Day and Easter Monday.
Our other Bank Holiday fixture takes place on 26 August when we will entertain Nantwich in the D-road derby.
Another one to look out for is the derby – we can just about call it that – with Congleton. The Bears were promoted from the Midland League Premier Division last season and host us on 16 November, while we welcome the team from the wrong side of the Staffordshire/Cheshire frontier to Buckmaster Avenue at the back end of March.
One last one to mark your card with and it’s an absolute ripper. Avro away – Saturday 29 March. Phenomenal food scenes will await you although this one comes with the caveat that if we are involved in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, it will need to be rescheduled!
There’ll be plenty of twists and turns along the way but as it stands, we’re joint top and gunning for something rather special. Happy days…