THE WITTON ALBION COLUMN - with media assistant, Paul Harper

THE hectic nature of the start of the Northern Premier League season has subsided a little as we step into the autumn/winter part of the campaign where games will, generally, just be played on Saturdays for the next few weeks.

For clubs which generally run with the help of volunteers, and a playing and management staff who generally all have day jobs alongside their football, the amount of midweek games can sometimes be a struggle.

Hopefully, for the next few weeks, it can be somewhat more relaxed for everyone, knowing we’ll just be playing once a week.

The last month has produced a bit of a mixed bag in terms of results for Albion.

After a disappointing defeat at home to Lancaster City, we went on a good four-game unbeaten run in the league which included a 3-1 victory over the division’s runaway leaders South Shields at Wincham Park.

Unfortunately, we’ve ended the month of October being knocked out of the Cheshire Senior Cup and Buildbase FA Trophy, so it’s league football which takes our focus now.

Witton are handily placed in the league table, sitting in 10th position, and still within touching distance of the play-off places.

While other clubs may have distractions from the various cup competitions, we can solely concentrate on our league form, and hopefully that will be a benefit to manager Carl Macauley and the players in the weeks to come.

There’s going to have been a long gap between our last home league fixture until our next, but we have a couple of mouthwatering games coming up during November at Wincham Park.

Since beating Ashton United 1-0 on October 15, the next BetVictor Northern Premier League game to be played on our home turf will be against FC United of Manchester, scheduled for November 16.

You may recall that we defeated FC United in the FA Cup last season. They suffered relegation out of the National League North at the end of last term, and now the two clubs compete on an equal footing in the same division.

The following week, we host Scarborough Athletic, and games against The Seadogs are often entertaining affairs, so they are two fixtures to really look forward to.