Tomorrow's Opponents: Padiham

Right. The pre-season fannying about is over. Time for the serious stuff to unfold.

Hmm, Padiham away for our first game of the season. Given that they knocked us out of the FA Vase, gave us an almighty five-nil beating with football's thrippling stick at the Arbories and beat us 1-3 at home after going 2-0 down after ten minutes last season, there's two ways of looking at this fixture:

1. With a sickening, bloodthirsty desire for revenge tinged with the faint whiff of hope that we'll catch Padiham on the hop or
2. With all the nervous trepidation of a Napoleonic War-era navy-boy who has been caught urinating on the deck and wants his lashing with a cat o' nine tails over and done with as soon as possible.

My personal opinion is that we'll either win this one 1-0 or be at the wrong end of another beating, particularly if Padiham continue their momentum from the end of last season where they finished third.

The first day of the new season is like the 3rd round of the FA Cup - anything can happen! Come on Cheadle!

Match report from last night's friendly match at Atherton LR is underneath this post - just scroll down the screen a little bit and you'll find it.