Well although we had a good pre-season, it has been good to get back to the competitive competitions. Obviously we would have liked a better start to the campaign, but now we have our 1st league win under our belt and that has been followed up with an Fa Cup win. We haven’t had the easiest of starts to the league but we think it is fair to say that we have not been truly beaten in any of the games either. For anyone that has been to Ossett Town will know it isn’t an easy place to go to. You really have to play the conditions with the slope, poor surface and strong winds, and they have put together a decent team with the experienced John Reed in charge, but for anyone who was at the match will know we deserved at least a point from that game. In the Bamber Bridge game the injuries forced us to have to change formation to 4-3-3, this is a formation which had worked well during pre-season games but in the first half against a well organised Brig team the formation didn’t work and we changed to a 4-4-2 at half time. From then on we were the better team and unlucky not to get at least a draw from that game and although a draw would probably have been a fair result in the end, we probably had the better of the chances. In the Brighouse game, we started brighter and got the ball down a little bit more than we were able to do in the previous games but despite having glorious chances we only went in at half time 1-0. Second half, Brighouse came out brighter and were probably the slightly better side in the second half but we should have taken all the points from this game and were left to rue the missed chances in the first half. In the Lancaster away game we showed character to come back from a goal down and a bright start by Lancaster. We were unlucky to have only finished the game 3-1 as it literally could have been 5 or 6, albeit it was still great to get the 3 points and you could see the relief in the dressing room now we have the first win under their belt. Saturday was the FA Cup and I thought for 70 minutes we looked the best we have so far, our only problem was trying to walk the ball into the net. We got caught napping straight from the restart after our 3rd goal and from then they took the ascendancy and in a game where for 70 minutes there was only us in it, we really had to cling on near the end.

From the outset this season we have wanted to keep approx. a 20man squad as we believe in the value of team spirit and lads coming to play for Clitheroe, for us and for the other lads. The problem we have at the minute is that with carrying a small squad it leaves you exposed to the injury crisis which we are seeing at the minute. Obviously Dom Mulkerrin suffered the bad break of his arm and we would like to wish him all the best in his recovery and thank everyone’s contribution in the raffle on Saturday which the proceeds of were donated to Dom. We also have Ross Dent who is still recovering from breaking a bone in his foot in pre-season but is due to start running and training again this week. We also have Si and James Walker who have picked up knocks and strains, which combined with Seydou( there has been a problem with his registration) really starts to deplete the squad. Last week we have also had Olly Mclean and Charlie Collinge leave the squad to go and play again in the local leagues, we would like to wish them all the best in the future and thank them for their contribution whilst they were part of Clitheroe FC. Saturday was difficult as we were down to 14 available players and 2 of these Steven Mercer and Rob Bonaminio played with injuries themselves.

With the landscape of the league this year and the finances some clubs are putting in has meant that recruiting new players has been different to say the least, but this is something we have known all summer and have been making plans for. There are a number of clubs who have got 30 men squads and paying unheard of amounts of money for our league, the problem these clubs have is on the 1st day of the season you can only name 16 players and therefore cannot keep everyone happy. We have known all summer lads who aren’t getting games elsewhere will now be looking for other clubs and there are situations we have been closely monitoring some of which are starting to progress and details of should be made public in the coming weeks. Obviously Sefton Gonzales has returned to the club after a brief spell last year and to be fair he has been excellent since he came back. Sefton is a perfect Centre forward in the Evo-Stik leagues, he is a big strong lad, with good feet and who gets goals. We also have an attacking midfield/ winger signed who should be unveiled in the next week or so, we are also in talks with a couple more experienced lads who hopefully we can get in the next week or so which will add something to the group we have got here already.

We honestly believe that we have the nucleus of a squad that can challenge in this league, we aren’t naïve and see that the league this year is probably the hardest it has been for some time, but we really feel we can hold our own against anyone in this league. We feel adding a few players in the right areas will help us improve, and combined with some of the lads coming back from injury we will have a really strong squad. We have got our first league win now and we can move on from this now with a good run of games through September and also the FA Cup game against Harrogate Railway which can bring some extra-finances into the club. All in all things are looking up after a mediocre start to the season.

Your continued support as always is much appreciated.

Thanks,

Simon, Ryan, Jordan and Ajet.