MATCH PREVIEW: Back on the road

Reds can look forward to three successive home games in early March but those matches will be bookended by long trips to the Nottingham area.

The first of those is to Worksop on Saturday where Reds will take on Craig Parry’s play-off chasing Town side at the The Windsor Foodservice Stadium (3pm).  It will mean a 360 miles round trip, at least, and another eight or nine hours on the coach for some of the players.

After important wins in their last two outings, Reds go to Babbage Way reasonably confident against 4th placed Worksop who are bidding for a play-off berth for the second successive season.

Last season, they finished a commendable 5th but were drawn away to Macclesfield in the semi-final and their season ended after a 3-1 defeat.

Speaking of Macclesfield, they are the only team to obtain more league points than Reds over the last six games as we reached third position in the form table.  But, still, we are in no position to get ahead of ourselves as we haven’t managed to record three consecutive wins all season.  That will be the aim, though.

After the midweek results, we remained in 14th position with 39 points and are edging gradually away from the relegation zone.  Basford escaped the drop last year with 37 points but the safety mark will be higher this term.

Back in November, we recorded a 2-1 home win over Worksop at Borough Park and that has been the most popular scoreline in this well-established fixture.  No fewer than thirteen matches have finished that way.  We have now met fifty-six times in NPL competitions, the FA Cup, FA Trophy and Conference North and, incredibly, both teams have twenty-two wins to their credit in the series.  We have scored 79 goals against Town but they have netted 80 against us!

We made our first appearance on Town’s 3G pitch last season and our record on such surfaces this season has included defeats at Ilkeston, Stockton and Hyde but a win at Mickleover.  Our last four away games, after the Worksop fixture, will also be on a synthetic surface at Basford, Macclesfield, Leek and Morpeth.  

Venue:

The Windsor Foodservice Stadium

Babbage Way

Worksop

S80 1UJ