MATCH PREVIEW: COINCIDENTALLY

Billy Barr and Ian Richards will lead their teams into NPL Premier Division action at the Fibrus Community Stadium on Saturday and the two managers have a few things in common.

Both have been in their current posts for the best part of ten months with Billy taking charge of Workington last November, the same day Ian stepped into the Guiseley technical area for the first time.

The two gentlemen represented Halifax Town during their respective playing careers, and have also spent time with Blackburn Rovers.

And both managers started the season with an opening day defeat last Saturday.

Despite scoring the first Premier Division goal of the season, through Adam Lund, Guiseley suffered a 2-1 home defeat to Warrington Town as Reds were going down at Gainsborough Trinity.

Guiseley bounced back in midweek with a decent 2-0 victory at Whitby Town, whilst we suffered late agony against Redcar Athletic, falling to a second defeat.

Richards’ will be hoping to improve on a final 13th position, last season, and Barr’s focus will be getting Reds into the top half of the table after the dramatic late climb out of the relegation zone.

Guiseley finished with 48 points last term, five more than we obtained, yet, remarkably, we lost one game fewer than the Yorkshire outfit.

Last season, Guiseley maintained their remarkable record at Borough Park with a fifth NPL victory on our patch, adding to the three Conference North successes they have bagged in Cumbria. Overall, they have only lost three times here in fourteen visits.

Our record in Yorkshire is just as grim with just one win recorded at Nethermoor and that was twenty-two years ago! Back in March, Dan Hopper opened the scoring there in a 1-1 draw.

Dan missed out on the midweek game v. Redcar, with a foot injury sustained before he even got onto the pitch at Gainsborough, and our woes continued on Tuesday when Luke Ellis was involved in a painful head collision after just two minutes.

Hopefully, both will be fit to resume with skipper, Brad Carroll, nearing a return too.

It will be our first Saturday fixture at the Fibrus.

Kick-off: 3pm