Taken from the programme for the visit of Padiham on Saturday 23 March. Programmes available on the gate, £2.

A tough run of away games sees us make our return to Brookburn Road for today’s league game against Padiham. A quirk of the fixtures that has meant it has been over a month since we last played at home in the very narrow loss to Charnock Richard, and if the Irlam game had beaten the weather that would have meant 4 away games on the bounce. This is surely something the league should look at to enable Clubs a semblance of order to cashflow, which I am sure in less well-run Clubs might have caused issues.

Fortunately, at WEST I have to say it is one of the best run Clubs I have worked at, with the Committee/Board and the many volunteers doing an absolutely tremendous job. The work on the pitch is also a credit, and as a result we will be playing a regular match pattern rather than having to play 2 and 3 matches a week in the final run in, and with 4 out of our last 6 games at home we will hopefully turn this to our advantage if we all stay positive and upbeat.

I remain extremely confident that the group of players we have will see the Club safe, despite a few recent hiccups but we are certainly made stronger by the time the lads spend as a group and the vocal support on matchdays. When we took over we were 10 points adrift of safety and having closed this to 4 points we must focus and show great resilience and determination to see the job through.

It has been good to get Steve Hall back after his suspension, Remy Howarth after injury lay off and also Lee Gavin following his work/study commitments. We have also added a few of extra faces to the squad with Rob Bourne arriving from Widnes and Jordan Peach from Stockport Town. Rob is a former Bury FC midfielder who captained the youth team and made appearances in the first team squad, and also spent a season playing professionally in Sweden for Ytterhogdals IK. Jordan came through the Stockport County youth structure and gives us attacking option from midfield. Forward/wide midfielder Jes Uchebegulam has return to us to continue his dual registration from Mossley. Defender Ishmael Banks has also joined us from Skem United, and is a product of the Robbie Fowler Academy in Liverpool. We have also signed Jack Maylen on dual reg from Curzon Ashton who will give cover and competition in the midfield and defence.

Finally I would like to record the best wishes of the whole club to Jack Sergeant and Jamie Coombes who have been missing for the last couple of weeks preparing for the Gibraltar game against the Rep of Ireland, which takes place this evening, and hopefully both will play a part in the match… and come back in good shape for our remaining 5 matches.
As mentioned above with 4 of our last 6 at home it will remain crucial that the home support gets right behind the lads to give us a platform to complete the goal of retaining our NWCFL premier division status.

Enjoy the game!

David Powell