Northwich build up continues...

The Vics
By Peter Marigold
April 27 2006

In a few days time, Leigh RMI will know whether or not they have avoided a second consecutive drop when they face the almost impossible task of defeating Conference North Champions Northwich.

Although RMI have been a regular in relegation dogfights in recent years, they really should not have been anywhere near the foot of the table this season. They made a good start but it just hasn’t happened for the Leythers. We have seen plenty of players come and go, and one must question the commitment of a lot of the players, as only a handful of the players have shown any sort of passion all season.

At 4.50 last Saturday, most RMI fans would have been watching out for the RMI score after finding out that we were 2-0 up at half time, and if we could have hung on to this lead (for once) we would have been in the driving seat for safety as well as sending Hednesford down. Once again though we couldn’t hang on, and we although we may have grabbed a point, this was little consolation as on Monday, the Leythers found out that we were to be deducted a point. Although the supporters were bemused with what was happening, we found out that goalkeeper John Lamb played in the Worksop game when his loan spell with Bradford PA hadn’t ended and that hard earned point a couple of days earlier was to go to waste as we were put back below Redditch and looking almost certain to go down.

But with Northwich winning the league last week, we are hoping that they may ease up a little, but with 15 consecutive victories to their name, that is highly unlikely, and with the Leythers not being able to buy a win at home, we look as though we are going back to the good old Unibond.

But the supporters ask themselves, how can we be in this position with beating Redditch both home and away but they are in the driving seat, and after our revival over Christmas when we were confident we could make the play offs!

Players going in and out have also hampered our performance on the field, and not having a settled midfield has give us a lot of problems, players such as Steve Smith who has left us and and Ryan McDowell who is in 1 week and out for the next 4 has left us with in my opinion only 1 good enough midfielder, Scott Willis.

The games like the Hucknall and Hyde games could be the games that could send us down, when we have looked as though we have won the match, and conceded very late on.

Leigh RMI have got themselves into this, and only they themselves can get them out of this mess on Saturday by putting in their best performance of the season, and with a bit of vocal support and hopefully a big away crowd, the Leythers can beat Northwich on the final day and stay up.

Peter Marigold