Good afternoon Ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Thorneyholme Road for this afternoon’s fixture with Todmorden. So - half the season gone and we find ourselves with not only a 15 point lead at the top of the Lancashire League, but with a Worsley Cup Final to look forward to in two weeks time. I suspect that a lot of us are pinching ourselves at the moment as the lads just keep on digging in and producing results even when it seems that we are in big trouble.

Since our last home game we have won the cup semi away at Burnley, had the game at Rawtenstall rained off and last weekend we managed to win away at both Todmorden and Enfield. Both of last week’s games were memorable for different reasons. In the Tod game the skipper David Ormerod took his 1,000 th Lancashire League wicket, a fantastic feat and I am sure everybody involved here at Accrington and up at Bacup, where he spent so many years, are delighted that he has reached this milestone.

On behalf of all of us congratulations Dibber and may you take many more wickets for us yet. The game at Enfield on Sunday saw us return with 12 points following a superb 100 not out from Graham Lloyd, an innings that proved to be a match winning one, ably assisted by Dibber taking 6-44 for a win that took us clear at the top of the table. In fact prior to last weeks game if we had dreamed of how we wanted the results to go we could not have wished for more as both Rawtenstall and Nelson lost twice allowing us to open up a gap.

But let’s not get too carried away just yet, we still have thirteen league games to go and in addition to the two teams above we now face new challenges from the likes of Haslingden and Ramsbottom who are enjoying good runs as well. We have to make sure that we keep working hard in every game if we are to stay in the race for honours, the great thing that we have going for us is that we have players all through the team who can put in match winning performances with either bat or ball. So in two weeks time we take ourselves off to Todmorden to play in the Worsley Cup Final and I am sure like all the players and BRS (Back Room Staff) you will all be looking forward to the day.

I know that one coach is now full to take supporters to the game and a second is now being arranged. But even though it is only two weeks away, we have got four league games to concentrate on prior to it, so as always we will take one game at a time and focus on each one as it arises. I hope that you can continue your fantastic support for us in each game we play, it is fantastic to have your backing and we all appreciate it.

Enjoy the game.
Ian Wilson