Workington Reds have fixed up two more friendly games, both to played in the North East.
Danny Grainger’s men will visit Whitley Bay on Saturday, July 22 and will follow up a week later at Ashington – both members of the Northern League last season.
In the season just ended Ashington finished runners-up, five points behind new champions Newton Aycliffe with Whitley Bay a further seven points behind in fourth. That earned Ashington promotion.
Whitley Bay, who won 22 of their 28 League matches last season, were regular opponents for the Reds in the NPL during the 1980s and 1990s, and the two clubs also met in the FA Cup in that period.
They last meet 13 year ago in a 2-2 pre-season draw in a game which was refereed by Michael Oliver, now a FIFA official. Andy Murray Jones and Shaun Vipond (pen) were the Workington scorers while current skipper Conor Tinnion was in the Reds squad.
A week later Reds are at Ashington, famous in football terms as being the home of outstanding players like Bobby Charlton, Jack Charlton and Jackie Milburn.
No such names in the current squad but they did finish runners-up in the Northern League winning 25 of their games. They had been considered pre-season favourites to go on and lift the title.
Ashington FC manager Ian Skinner has set the bar high as he prepares to embark on a new challenge in the Northern Premier League East Division following promotion from the Ebac Northern League.
Newton Aycliffe secured their place in the NPL by going up as champions from the ENL whilst the Colliers – who finished as league runners up – comfortably defeated Glossop North End 3-0 in their Inter Step play off in Derbyshire.
Speaking on the North East Non-League Show the Ashington boss said that the Woodhorn Lane based club were not merely going to make the numbers up in the NPL – and even talked about them trying to ‘sneak’ into a play off position come the end of the season.
Skinner said: “We are not going into the next league above (NPL) to make the numbers up. I am talking about play offs if I can or certainly when we get to the business end of the season making sure we are in with a shout of potentially getting into the play offs or at least giving ourselves a chance to see if we can sneak into them.
“Will that be easy? No. It’ll be a real tough test because you will have five, six, seven or eight very, very strong dominant clubs in the league next year. However, I believe if we can put the squad together with the right make up that we are looking for, then on our day we will be able to give people a game and be competitive and come the latter part of the stages to be in with a shout of maybes trying to sneak into a play-off spot – and sneak in would probably be the right words.”
