Saturday's Opponents: Blackpool Mechanics

Blackpool Mechanics...now let me think. I'm going to have to delve deep into the recesses of my memory as it has been absolutely bloody ages since I saw Cheadle Town pit their footballing wits against them.

A season-and-a-half ago as it turns out as they were one of our first opponents at home (a 1-1 draw) at the start of last season and neither Polardin or I made the 0-1 defeat at the seaside in the reverse fixture.

Hopefully we will see the return of the midfield that we had to do without (and painfully missed) at Chadderton last Saturday as the Mechs' away record this season ain't that bad; of their nine away matches they have only failed to score twice and have only been defeated twice and all. We currently find them in 8th place, some nine points ahead.

If a top-ten finish is our aim for this season, then we have a great chance of making progress on that front as this is the first of three consecutive league matches at Park Road...and a maximum haul of nine points could put us on some sort of positional par as our opponents this Saturday.

Come on Cheadle!

Oh, by the way, if you're thinking of coming along to this one then it's a 2.00pm kick-off. I would dearly love to say that this is because we're live on Sky or Setanta, but the real reason is a bit more prosaic: it looks like our floodlights still aren't behaving themselves and thus the early kick-off gives us chance to play the game out before we lose daylight. Does anybody know a good electrician...?