Pre-Season Friendlies Full Programme - updated 01/08

Whenever we’re playing in your town ... or anywhere else.

At last our full programme of pre-season friendlies is complete and we’re delighted to have a good mix of games, which will test the team as well as giving the supporters some cracking days out and make us some much needed funds at the same time. As we have to play friendlies away from home, all of our opponents have very generously agreed to split the profits, so every game you attend will help our club as well as theirs.

Here’s a brief review of each of the games coming up:

Sat 19 July Kettering Town k.o. 15:00 (click here for detailed information)
Let’s hope Margy’s pre-season training regime is paying off, because we hit the ground running with our first friendly game against Conference club Kettering Town. This will be one of the toughest matches the team will have to play in the run up to the season as Kettering are on a roll having run away with the Conference North last season, winning it by 17 points and with a goal difference almost twice that of any other team in that league.
It should be a good day out with a large home crowd, so let’s get behind our lads as they take on such good quality opposition.

Tue 22 July Altrincham k.o.19:45 (click here for detailed information)
There won’t be much rest as we then go into another game against Conference opposition - it’s a real honour that we’ve been offered two games by Conference clubs. Altrincham are one of the few clubs in the Conference who have remained semi-professional, so it’s good to be playing a friendly against a club that appreciates the harsh realities we also face. We know Altrincham well having played several games at their ground and if things had gone differently, we would have been playing our FA Trophy home tie against Radcliffe Borough at Moss Lane. Instead, we get to re-visit one of our favourite local haunts to pit ourselves against the home team and we can dream of how things might have been if the FA had sanctioned our original plan.

Sat 26 July Tamworth k.o. 15:00 (click here for detailed information)
This will be another good day out visiting a higher league club at a new away venue. Conference North side Tamworth have started their pre-season programme and will already have played six games by the time we visit them, including hosting the first ever game to be played by the newly re-formed FC Halifax Town. Apart from Glasgow Rangers, FC Halifax Town and FC United are their only other pre-season home games, so Tamworth are certainly doing their bit for fans-owned clubs.

Wed 30 July Salford City k.o. 19:45 (click here for detailed information)
Newly promoted to Unibond Div1 North, Salford City are old foes and we’ve had some fantastic games against them, but this will be the first time we’ve had the opportunity to play them at their own classic non-league ground. When we were in the North West Counties many opponents had to move their games against us because of our large crowds. This should be a much more friendly experience than when we played Salford City at the Willows. Their Moor Lane ground has got grassy knolls and a bar you know...

Sat 2 Aug Abbey Hey k.o. 15:00 (click here for detailed information)
The friendly against Abbey Hey will provide us with another game at a traditional venue and many will have visited their ground to see our Reserves when they played their home games there, particularly the record crowd that saw the Reserves play Club AZ on 29 December last year. Now we have decided to manage our reserve players in a different way, this will be a good occasion to thank Abbey Hey for all their help in the last couple of seasons.

Wed 6 Aug Curzon Ashton k.o. 19:45 (click here for detailed information)
It’s always good to have local rivals and Curzon Ashton have been that for the last couple of years, having been promoted with us to the Unibond last season. We’ve also played several other games at their ground, most notably our two cup finals. Unfortunately we won’t be able to renew our league challenges this year, but a friendly gives us the opportunity to thank Curzon for their tolerance of us and our rather infamous, occasionally awkward fans.

Fri 8 Aug Nantwich Town k.o. 20:00 (click here for detailed information)
We finish our friendly programme by finally playing the game that got rained off last pre-season. We were informed earlier that Nantwich are unable to use their ground for our friendly game due to overrunning work being done to re-lay the pitch. Unfortunately, Nantwich have been unable to find a suitable venue to hold the game on the planned Saturday, so we have agreed to play the match at Witton Albion’s ground on Friday 8 August. As a good will gesture, Nantwich have dropped their admission prices for this game by £1 for adults and concessions.

We apologise for any inconvenience and ask all supporters to be sympathetic to Nantwich’s problems. It’s in everyone’s interests for their pitch to be less like a McCoys crisp for the Cup game in September and we’ve previously been very well looked after at Witton Albion.



Bring on United