Off to: Radcliffe

All being well I'll finally get the chance to cross Radcliffe Borough off my 'not been to' list (not that I have a list of grounds I've never been to, contrary to popular opinion I'm not that sad). I did come close to doing it ten tears ago only for the game to have been postponed in the short space of time between setting off and arriving.

Despite being relatively near neighbours we haven't crossed swords very often with Radcliffe. In terms of league meetings it currently stands as:

Played: 6 Won: 4 Lost: 2

Borough have however won the last two league meetings (1-0 on both occasions) during the season we embarked on our grand march towards the North West Counties League, and the few times we've played them in the Manchester Premier Cup since then have also ended badly.

It may be only September but already this fixture has the air of a six pointer about it. Both sides have had a less than auspicious start to the 2006/07 campaign but Radcliffe currently hold a one point and two place advantage over the Lilywhites. They also enter the game coming off the back of an incredibly narrow defeat at Matlock whereas we're fresh from 'the match we're trying to forget,' and both sides know that a victory will take their points total past one psychological barrier: getting into double figures as soon as possible.

The game also has the intriguing B-story of Chris Downey playing against the team he was top scorer for in the last two seasons for the first time. Thankfully the ex-Mossley man broke his scoring duck for his new side at the week end so that's one less thing for us to worry about - now we can concentrate on just having kittens every time they get in our half.

Prediction: Trust me - we'll win this. It'll get a bit hair raising at times but we'll be driving away from Bury with three points, though not necessarily our hubcaps (only joking Radcliffe viewers). If we do lose, please feel free to make a mockery of my confident prediction.