City Breaks

Five years. That’s how long its been since we last made the relatively short trip anti-clockwise around the M60 to Salford City’s Moor Lane ground.

Not that the passage of time is noticeable when you get there. As David Byrne would put it, “Same as it ever was.”

While it has been half a decade since we played them in a league competition home or away, we have faced them a tad more recently. The Ammies were our opponents at Seel Park in the first round of the Manchester Premier Cup two years ago when both sides produced a match of such mind numbing mediocrity that self-harm looked a much more enjoyable way of passing the time.

The one bright spot in the match was the only goal of the game scored by Peter Wright in the final minutes. Not because it won us the game or was a breathtaking strike but because it prevented an extra thirty minutes having to be suffered by those in attendance.

Lining up against us should be one of the two Brackenridges (possibly Steve) who briefly turned out for us at the back end of our “Back to the Unibond First Division” tour in 2007. Also in the City squad will be ‘bull in search of a china shop’ Barry Massey who, as a consequence of our many years in the NWCL, will be no stranger to Mossley supporters.

Of course that all depends on the weather. Having spent most of the afternoon walking through a seemingly continuous wall of heavy rain, just a mile or so away from the ground, there must be some doubt as to whether the game will go ahead or not. So check before you set off to see if the game is taking place. And that's as close to a public service announcement as Mossley80 will get.

At least it will be until I can talk Alvin Stardust into warning children thinking of watching FC Bury that they're out of their tiny minds.