MATCH PREVIEW: Boxing Day battles
Reds will play their 64th Boxing Day fixture on Thursday (3pm) and, although they have won more games than they have lost over the last hundred years or so, their NPL record on the 26th is poor to say the least.
We have played nineteen Northern Premier League matches on Boxing Day but have only recorded five victories and four of those were obtained in the last decade.
Twelve months ago, we lost in mud-bath conditions at Atherton Collieries but in recent years we have beaten Nantwich Town (2016), Dunston (2019) and Kidsgrove Athletic (2022) on our patch.
Traditionally, Carlisle United was the Boxing Day fixture during the North Eastern League and Football League days with the 1963 Fourth Division clash at Borough Park attracting Workington’s record league attendance – 18,628.
Attendances have been more modest during the non-league era, and the best crowd recorded for a home match was during our brief flirtation with the North West Counties League in 1998 when over 800 watched the derby v. Holker Old Boys.
The average attendance for this term is 680 and it would be a timely boost if we could get over a thousand through the turnstiles on Thursday. The club could certainly do with the extra income having lost the Blyth Spartans fixture to Storm Darragh earlier this month.
Morpeth Town will be our visitors on this occasion and they will be travelling further than any other club for the Premier Division Boxing Day derbies. Leek Town, in contrast, will make the twelve-mile journey for their game at Macclesfield and five other clubs will be on the road for less than an hour for their respective away matches.
It will be Morpeth’s second visit of the season having travelled across the A69 in October for the FA Trophy encounter. We obtained a 3-1 victory that day after Town had established a first half lead through a Jack Foalle strike. Steven Rigg netted twice to help us through to the next round with Jamie Allen also on target.
It was the start of Riggy’s prolific Autumn/Winter goals return but he will view this fixture with mixed feelings. In last season’s league encounters, he picked up a red card at both Craik Park and Borough Park – two yellows on each occasion.
Those meetings resulted in a 3-0 defeat in Northumberland and a 2-2 draw here.
Town are currently above us in the table, having played one game less. Last week, they obtained a morale boosting win over Gainsborough Trinity meaning they have now won eight and lost eight at the half-way point of their league programme.
Reds will be hoping to end a troubled 2024 on a positive note, having won just ten league games throughout the calendar year.
The squad trained on Monday and manager, Mark Fell, has more selection options than he has had for weeks as the long injury list continues to decrease.
Workington’s record Boxing Day victory was recorded back in 1928 when they trounced Washington Colliery 9-2 at Lonsdale Park.
