AS the winter chill spreads throughout Shropshire and the Midlands, football teams in the Midland Alliance League have been working hard to keep off the Christmas pounds without kicking a single ball.
Only four teams managed to squeeze in a fixture during the festive break, leaving Bridgnorth Town and the rest of the league chomping at the bit to play their first football for over a month.
Town have seen games against Causeway United and Shifnal Town called off in recent weeks, meaning their last competitive fixture was back in December 12 – a 2-1 defeat to high-flying Stratford Town.
Bridgnorth manager Andy Marlowe said his players were understandably frustrated by the lack of action but added the New Year was the perfect time to move away from the relegation dogfight and start looking towards other goals.
“Obviously from our point of view we desperately want to get a game underway,” he said. “Our aim for the end of the season is survival, we can’t ask for more than that at the moment. Once that’s sorted we can then set other targets, like trying to finish in the top 14 or 12.”
Marlowe admitted the possibility of playing lots of games come the end of the season was slightly worrying, although with many being played at Crown Meadow it could work in their favour.
“I’m a little bit concern about the fixture backlog, but at least this year the majority of the cancelled games have been at home, which means we won’t have to travel all over the Midlands, as was the case last year. Everyone is raring to go, but we’ve also had the difficulty of not being able to train.
“We’ve been doing ‘boxercise’ and circuit training to keep us going, but obviously that’s never a replacement for playing football matches,” he added.
“But everyone’s in the same boat. I think only Stratford has been able to play recently as they’ve got new facilities, but the majority have been called off.”
Marlowe said the break had enabled a few players to recovery from injury although others were still waiting patiently to complete their suspensions.
“We are getting a couple of lads back from injury, but we’ve also got a couple of lads serving one match suspensions and they haven’t been able to see off their bans,” he said. “Jason Pike was given a three match ban back in mid November and he’s still waiting to complete a one game ban, as is Zak Jackson.”
Marlowe was also busy in and around the transfer market over the festive period, looking for players to add competition for places.
“We have a connection with Romulus so we will be looking to bring a few fresh faces in, and we’ve signed Tony Onokah from Wolverhampton Casuals. He’s a striker who will provide competition for places, especially with Jackson being suspended.”
And with Wednesday’s game against Studley United looking like it would be called off – which was a rearranged fixture itself – Marlowe said Bridgnorth were raring to go for the start of 2010.
“Overall though we’re chomping at the bit to play again. There will be no excuses as we just want to play football now.
“It will be interesting to see who copes with the lack of games the best. The top teams might not get into their stride as quickly this time around. Some of the games that were played over Christmas involved teams in and around us, who lost, so it’s our aim to get out of trouble as quickly as possible. But there is no way we will be involved in a relegation battle come the end of the season.”
Town will be hoping to play their first home game since December 5 against Biddulph Victoria tomorrow, at 3pm.
