Another postponement in the north east last Saturday ensured Brighouse Town have yet another midweek trip up the A1(M) when the re-arranged date is sorted.
The 4G Consett pitch was covered in three inches of snow overnight and into Saturday morning and with the forecast for the day not that good in the area the game was called off at 9am. The surrounding car park was obviously also covered and the terracing.
Consett and Town have agreed to look at a Tuesday night in April after the Easter weekend. Consett, who are four games behind their programme of fixtures now, couldn ‘t play this coming Saturday on the free date set aside by the league in case of matches postponed in February or the first weekend of March. Town were up in Newcastle on Tuesday evening playing fourth-placed Hebburn Town in a game that had already been postponed from December 2nd (snow) and again on the re-arranged date, February 10 (waterlogged).
Town manager Vill Powell and his assistant Louis Axcell went to Stocksbridge Park Steels’ home game with Hebburn last Saturday to run the rule over the Newcastle side and at the same time do some scouting. Hebburn came away with a 2-1 win but the south Yorkshire side gave them a run for their money.
The deadline for signings for the season is Thursday, March 28 and Powell is felt to want to add a striker to his ranks with nine games left after the Hebburn game, with just four of them at home. Town in fifteenth place on the 20 clubs in the East Division are nine points ahead of the bottom two clubs, Winterton Rangers and Grantham Town and have played one game more than the south Lincolnshire club and two more than Winterton in north Lincolnshire.
Each point gained now is like gold dust to retain the club’s place in Step 4 of non-league football.
Town have no game this weekend and resume on Saturday, March 16 away to Sheffield FC before returning home to entertain Hebburn Town on Saturday, March 23, a game sponsored by Rastrick Cricket Club.
In the meantime, Life vice-president Ray McLaughlin has just received from the FA the club’s ground grading department requirements before March 30, 2025 to keep their non-league status. After studying it with other senior members of the club’s committee, he remarked that it was a good job the date was twelve months hence from now.
Stadium sponsors Heffernan Utilities have offered to help in anyway they can. The company have just moved their headquarters into Brighouse at Owler Ings after being for several years in Halifax.
“That is a major boost for us and we are very grateful to Luke Heffernan and his colleagues,” said McLaughlin, who added that they also did a lot of concreting ahead of the ground grading executive visiting the ground back in September.
“We will draw up the list of jobs needed to be carried out and then take it from there.”
