HATRICK HERO Stevie Stephenson will be a big miss against Marsden Inn Rangers

It is hoped this fixture will not fall foul of the weather as Robertsons will want to capitalise on their excellent first game of the 2008-09 campaign a 3-2 victory against Ellison SC.

Steve Dean will have some team selection decisions to make as a number of players will not be available, hatrick hero Stevie Stephenson will obviously be a big miss as will the ever reliable Chrissy Sinclair, and last weeks unused sub Joe Gray is also unavailable. With Steva missing Robertsons will be hoping that chances like the two excellent efforts from Ian Hudson against Ellison which crashed against the woodwork will find the back of the net.

On the plus side new signing Christie Elliott could well be inline to make his official debut after impressing in a pre season friendly. It is hoped that Wayne Henry will be back to marshal the defence alongside Darryll Donnelly, David Mullen and Dan Purvis who have been exceptional at times in the pre-season games, Craig Lowther the likely candidate to step down, Lowther can feel himself to be unlucky as he had a steady performance last week. Hopefully Dave Smith will have recovered from injury in time to lead the attack, if Dave Smith fails a fitness test Steve Dean may have to consider the possibility of replacing Aaron Todd in goal with Luke Wright with Toddy leading the attack. The precocious talents of Callum Wade and Jonny Matthews will hopefully cause Marsden all sorts of problems down the wings.

Another big decision for the manager is which formation to use last weeks 4-5-1 formation was certainly a success against Ellison SC with Dan Smith relishing his free role , but obviously the formation could well depend on the players available on the day. Other players who could well come in contention who were unavailable last week are Colin Lucas, Phil Burns, Gaz Tone, Declan Tilson and another new signing David Ridley.

POSTSCRIPT

THE GAME HAS FELL VICTIM TO THE WEATHER I SENT THE FOLLOWING EMAIL TO THE COUNCIL

I have just been to have a look at our pitch and one of our goalposts is down and the pitch has not been marked out yet, will this be sorted tomorrow for our game on Sunday.

If our game has to be called off because of this, would it be possible to allocate us a spare pitch somewhere as was the case on Sunday when our game against Ellison SC was switched to Temple Park from Oakleigh Gardens.

The council reply was :

It was only possible last week to re-arrange a venue due to the youth leagues not starting. Unfortunately this weekend Youth football begins so I will be unable to offer you an alternative venue as we are calling off King George V Jarrow and Lukes Lane. Mainly because of the weather, but we have also had mindless teams playing when they can clearly see that the pitches were not fit for playing on. Both adult & junior teams are guilty of this. So for this week those 2 venues are not available for using, and should not be used in any instance for training purposes.