Brighouse Town travel to third in the table Stockton Town on Saturday (3pm) minus their influential suspended skipper Tom Haigh and fellow suspended centre-back Aiden Walker.
Both would have been available for last Saturday’s re-arranged away game at Shildon after being sent off on the Monday night had the game in Durham not been postponed on the Friday night with four inches of snow on the pitch. Haigh received a three-match ban for his dismissal against Sheffield FC and Walker one match for his red card.
At the time of going to print no added recruitment had been completed and Town will also be without right wing-back Mohammed Ibrahim (ankle ligaments). Northern Counties East club Frickley Athletic have been rebuffed after they made a move for Town’s early autumn recruit Josh Dacre and he looks likely to line up alongside Matty Nebard with the fullbacks being Josh Grant and Sam Reed who will continue to train fulltime with Sheffield Wednesday at their Middlewood Road training headquarters near to their Hillsborough Ground.
Reed, 19, son of the club’s assistant manager Stacy Reed, impressed in his two outings with the Owls U-23s against Peterborough United and Sheffield United but, as a contracted Town player, he will not play another game now as the deadline for signings is next Thursday, March 23 at 5pm. To play those two games he had to be de-registered and then re-registered and Town cannot afford to lose a player of his quality for the remaining eight games of the season.
Town are currently 15th in the table four places above second from bottom Carlton Town and seven points above them but they need all the points they can muster as they also don’t want to be dragged into the two places above and face a play-off game with a side from the NCEL.
Town and others in the Pitching-In Northern Premier League Division One East cannot rely on the relegation of mid-table North Shields through failing ground grading standards as was shown last season when Leeds-based Yorkshire Amateur were relegated through failing to upgrade their ground. North Shields are looking at a cost of around £50,000 to upgrade their cliff-top ground and their officials feel they will only serve one season in the division from the EBAC Northern League as the funds are just not coming in.
Town have a tough run in with runaway League leaders Worksop Town due at the Yorkshire Payments Stadium on Saturday week for a game sponsored by Heckmondwike-based national clothing company Tog 24 and Lightcliffe CC Juniors’ parents. The week after they travel to Cleethorpes, followed by the re-arranged game at Shildon on Tuesday, April 4, and then entertain the in-form Grimsby Borough. Points are going to be hard to come by and each one will be a bonus for Vill Powell and his charges.
Assistant manager Reed says they will take each game as it comes and in the division says anybody can beat anyone else higher up on their day.
“You only have to look at last midweek’s shock 2-0 away win for Carlton at Hebburn Town, who are second in the table and also on a night when they have just made the longest trip in the division, some 170 miles and a round trip of 340 miles, he added!
Striker Laurence Sorhaindo has been diagnosed with a damaged meniscus (cartilage) and a bruised bone in the right knee and will need specialist treatment, so, as revealed last week, he is out for the season.
Walker will be back from his suspension for the Worksop game, but Haigh will also miss the Worksop and Cleethorpes matches.
