Last month it was the Cheltenham Festival that deprived local football clubs of players.
Tomorrow’s Grand National at Aintree appears to have claimed more footballers as clubs have to use the depth of their squads to bring in replacements.
Windscale are one of the worst affected for their trip to South Moor in the Wearside League with half a dozen heading for Liverpool and the nation’s favourite horse race.
It gives manager Stephen Fawcett a total of nine absentees but they will still have the full complement of 14 for the trip and the fourth time they will have played South Moor this season. The previous three have ended in narrow defeats, the most recent 1-0.
South Moor lost the Shipowners Cup final 4-0 to odds-on favourites Seaton Carew on Easter Monday but bounced back with a 4-0 win on Wednesday night against Washington.
Cleator Moor Celtic are also affected by the Grand National but still have a squad of 18 to pick from for tomorrow’s West Lancashire League game at home to Burscough Richmond.
“We have six members of the Under-18s squad in tomorrow so it’s a chance forn them to show what they are capable of. I’m looking for a similar defensive show that we put up last week in a 1-0 win over Milnthorpe,” said manager Gareth Agnew.
Whitehaven have a welcome home game after two trips over Easter which both ended in 5-0 defeats.
But it’s a tough task entertaining Blackpool Wren Rovers who are fourth in the table and have only lost twice in 10 away games.
Millom, on a decent little run of form, travel to CMB who are 17 points behind them in the table.
Milnthorpe Corinthians have no game after a busy week in which they lost 1-0 at Cleator Moor Celtic and were then beaten 3-2 on penalties by First Division Pause United in the quarter final of the League’s President’s Cup following a 2-2 draw.
They are back in action at Parkside Road, Kendal in the final of the Westmorland County Cup against Appleby.
Kendal Town, who host that final, play their final away game in the regular Northern League season when they visit Whickham tomorrow.
Cutrrently out of the play-off spots in seventh Kendal need to win their last two games to have a chance of qualifying. They are on 56 points with West Auckland (58) and North Shields (57) ahead of them – all three have two games left.
Guisborough will be champions if they win at Carlisle City tomorrow which will leave Shildon and Whitley Bay leading the play-off positions and Boro Rangers almost there in the third place.
Kendal did not make any signings before the transfer deadline but they did lose defender James Stanley who has joined Squire’s Gate in the NW Counties League.
Their side for the trip to Whickham will be very similar to the one which beat Penrith last week to keep alive their top five hopes.
Carlisle City are looking forward to hosting the potential champions, and doing what they can to hold-up their title celebrations.
Manager Dan Kirkup is banned from the technical area after picking up three yellow cards so assistant Mark Boyd will be in charge on the sidelines.
Jay Kelly, Tom Mahone and Aran Fitzpatrick will all miss out through injury but Kirkup said: “We want to be as strong as possible as we can affect the title race but these three are a but worse than three or four others who are nursing knocks.
“If it wasn’t for a cup final at the end of the season we would have just played them but with that in mind we need to be careful with them.”
Penrith, although well beaten at Parkside Road last week, can do Kendal Town a favour as they host Boro Rangers currently lying fourth in the table, four points better off than the Mintcakes – but an extra game to play.
Penrith have an injury doubt over Connor Hammell but Rob Ivison returns to the squad.
In the NPL Premier Division Workington Reds continue their fight to avoid the drop with a trip to Ashton United.
They are a point clear of the drop zone but it’s desperately tight among the bottom seven clubs and none of them have reached safety as yet.
Reds boss Billy Barr had a number of injury absentees over the two Easter games when they only collected a point but expects to have most of them back in contention.
