Twelve Wins From UEFA Cup Place

The NWCL nostalgia trip continues in the FA Cup this Saturday as we follow up early season matches against Clitheroe, Warrington, Ramsbottom and Salford with a trip to Flixton.

It’s been a few years since we last made the trip to Valley Road and negotiated one of the narrowest set of turnstiles at possibly any level of football. To be more precise it was the 2002/03 season when two players made their debuts for Mossley. One was Rob Matthews who made the kind of start most can only dream of when they sign for a club and the second was Lee Blackshaw in his first spell at the club.

Looking at the history between the two sides reveals a statistic that, if mentioned here, would probably tempt fate.

Always one to cock a snook at destiny though the fact is that we've never lost to Flixton in a competitive match. A couple have ended in draws but the majority of them have finished in wins for the Lilywhites. In these games a total of 39 goals have been scored; 13 of them having been notched by Mossley in the last two meetings.

The Flixton line-up should contain Chris Downey, one of the more popular players to have pulled on the Lilywhites shirt in recent years, and there are many amongst the Seel Park faithful who wouldn't bet against him getting on the score sheet in this game. Downey has already found the back of the net seven times this season and all of them have come in the FA Cup.

Complacency is the watch word for Mossley in this game. On paper this looks like a banker for the away side but sadly football's not played on a sheet of A4 – it's played on grass. Unless of course you're Garforth where it's played approximately 60 foot above it.

Flixton are exactly the kind of opposition who've put paid to Mossley's hopes in more cup competitions than I care to remember this century. NWCL opposition or not, this would be a great victory for the Lilywhites if we could do it. So fingers crossed that all some us will be doing at work on Monday morning is watching the FA website and pressing F5 every three seconds in anticipation of the next round draw.