Men's Team

We had a mixed bag of results this week after we played consecutive matches against teams at the top of the league. Firstly, Calum pulled off a tactical masterclass to beat Workington in very testing conditions with goals from Ryan Brooke (of course), Lloyd Marsh-Hughes, Dapo Olarewaju and Rhain Hellawell.

Unfortunately, we followed that up with a disappointing 4-0 defeat at home to Mossley. I don't want to dwell on the result, so instead I will focus on the fact that 684 people turned up on a Tuesday in October to watch the Linnets and many of them stayed behind to clap the players off the pitch despite the result. Our average attendance is currently over 600 and that is very good considering we are three months into the season.

Next up is of course the FA Trophy third qualifying round tie against FC United of Manchester and this game will be a real mark of how far we have come since we last played them in 2019. I am really looking forward to this game and I'm sure it'll be a great occasion.

There is still time to buy tickets (they will be on sale until midnight on Friday), pay on the gate will be available but you will be able to jump the queue by buying an advance ticket. We are expecting a very large crowd, so I would highly recommend arriving early.

We will have the Leicester v Arsenal game on before our match as well as the Tottenham v Manchester United game on afterwards.

Runcorn Linnets Tickets

Linnets Ladies

The Ladies played a very exciting match at the APEC Taxis Stadium against Northwich Vixens on Sunday. It was a match which ebbed and flowed with both teams having a chance to win it. At the final whistle it was Northwich who edged it 4-3. A special thank you to Alex Wharton for stepping in to manage the team in the absence of manager David Todd who was away coaching in Denmark.

Our next match is on Sunday 31st October away at Mersey Valley Ladies, kick off is at 2pm.

Development Team

The Development Team didn't have a match this week after the North West Under 21 Development League made the decision to suspend all weekend fixtures after incidences of abuse and threatening behaviour towards match officials. None of these incidents involved Runcorn Linnets and as a club we condemn all abuse of match officials and expect a certain standard of behaviour from all players and coaches who represent our football club.

Our next game is away at Stalybridge Celtic U21s on 31st October at 2pm.

Ground grading visit

We had our ground grading visit in the last week and the officials who carried out the inspection were very complimentary about the improvements we have made to the APEC Taxis Stadium. There are a few minor issues we need to sort out before the Grading Officer can recommend to the FA Alliance Committee the awarding of the Grade D, however we have until 31st March to remedy these issues and they will be sorted in a matter of weeks. The deficiencies identified are;

• Free standing chairs need to be removed (already done)

• Gaps in fencing near dugouts

• 12 home and 12 away directors and three press seats need to be designated (i.e stickers on seats)

• Yellow hatched markings in front of stand needs extending by one metre

• Match officials changing rooms to be switched and designated as Match Officials 1 and Match Officials 2.

As you can see there is nothing to be concerned about and it shouldn't take our maintenance team long to remedy these issues. Once they are remedied, the ground will be reinspected and we should be awarded Grade D.

Events

Unfortunately, we had to make the decision to cancel our Halloween Party due to disappointing ticket sales. We could have continued with the event in the hope that people would pay on the door but as we were preparing food for the event it wasn't really practical to do this and the volunteers who would have been running the party and there until the end were the same volunteers who will be there early Saturday morning to prepare for the FC United match, so I didn't feel it was fair on them when we didn't know if it would be worthwhile. We are all disappointed at having to cancel this event but we have many more events coming up and hopefully they will be more successful.

We will still be hosting our Bonfire Night fireworks display on 6th November. This will be a night of fun for the whole family with food available from the tea bar and The Clubhouse Bar will be open. This is a free event and the whole community is invited, so why not come on down and join the fun?

Thank you all for reading.

Dave Jones

Runcorn Linnets FC - Chairman