Leaders Kidsgrove up next as run against four of top six starts
With a really tough game coming up at the weekend against early league pacesetters Kidsgrove, its worth reflecting on the journey so far.
There’s been a lot of change and the team is still evolving but in the process of doing that, we have been incredibly competitive, especially given that we had a tough start to the season with successive league defeats.
The Trafford game last weekend was frustrating in that we would have expected to have won the game and could then have been going to Kidsgrove in the play-off spots.
However, given the nature of how that game panned out with the team pulling together to claim a point after staring down the barrel at 2-0 down inside the first 20 minutes, we should reflect on the character shown by the lads rather than be too disappointed by the result.
Callum Speed – an ever present in league matches this season – scored his first goals for the club and there was a debut from the bench late on for Australian Phoenix Lee. The point is that there’s still a lot to come from our young and exciting side!
Which brings us to Kidsgrove and our next challenge. Incredibly after just eight games, our near neighbours have already built up a seven-point lead at the top of the table and only lost their 100% record last week when they drew 1-1 at Avro – ex Castle player Callum Lovatt with an 89th minute equaliser in that one.
They score plenty of goals too, having racked up six against both 1874 Northwich and Gresley Rovers this term.
Our squad is going to be fully tested this month as we play four of the top six but the derby on Saturday is a particularly special occasion given that it’s likely to see a reunion with the Lovatt brothers Callum and Jake and our leading scorer last season Nathan Morley.
But one man we won’t be coming up against on Saturday is Kidsgrove’s former captain Oliver Jepson who moved on to North West Counties league leaders Bury yesterday.
With local pride at stake, we hope plenty of you will make the very short trip to Kidsgrove as we look to win our second local derby of the season.
Come on ‘Castle!