Preston Grasshoppers vs. Caldy – KO 2.15 pm
Preston Grasshoppers next opponents on Number 2 pitch at Lightfoot Green are local rivals from the Wirral Caldy against whom the home side will be hoping for a better result than in their last two games.
Whilst this weeks visitors have had two successful outings since an opening day of the season defeat at Sedgley Park Hoppers results have been completely the reverse, losing at home to the same Sedgley side coupled with last week’s reverse at Chester.
Hoppers need to get back on track and pull away from their current lowly position whilst Caldy will be looking to continue their winning streak.
Another period of poor play last Saturday at Hare Lane mirrored the defeat at the hands of Sedgley Park the previous week. In both instances it cost them dearly, making prospects of success in both games almost impossible.
Just to compound a “bad day at the office”, Niall Crosley suffered what looked like a serious injury resulting in the second Hoppers player to make a visit to hospital in two weeks. Everyone hopes that he’s soon on the road to a full recovery. Thankfully Phil Mills stay at RPI didn’t last long and after a week of rest will be commencing the “returning to play protocol”.
A look back at the last home game saw a number of Milestones reached. Newcomer Rob Bramhall making his first start for Hoppers and Lewis Allen reaching 500 league points with the final score of the game taking his personal League points tally closer to Steve Kerry’s five hundred and twenty five.
The Inaugural senior game against today’s visitors was a pre-season warm-up fixture at Lightfoot Green prior to the 2004/5 season. Caldy had climbed the league ladder with a succession of promotions from the depths of South Lancashire and Cheshire 3, eventually gaining promotion to N2N as Champions of North 1 in 2007.
There have been eighteen league meetings between the two clubs, all in consecutive seasons since Caldy’s last promotion with our visitors currently holding the upper hand. Hoppers will be looking to put the heavy defeat at Hare Lane behind them and reduce the current seven wins to ten margin in games against Caldy plus last season’s drawn encounter at Paton Field.
The first league meeting was in the Wirral back on the 6th of October 2007 when Hoppers turned around a narrow half time deficit to eventually run out winners by twenty points to sixteen.
Photograph courtesy of Mike Craig – Sam Gale and Matt Beaty grapple for the ball whilst try scorer Will Lees looks to pick up any scraps
