Teams gear up for opening day in Lancashire and Cheshire Football League

The Lancashire and Cheshire AFL has set up the programme for the first league fixtures of the season this coming Saturday after much hard work by league and club officials has been undertaken to make this possible with plenty more still to be done.

Fixtures secretary Malc Kershaw is hopeful that about 80 per cent of the teams will be involved as some clubs are struggling with venues and pitches still being unavailable for play due to Covid 19.

Plenty of teams have been involved in pre-season friendly matches to give them experience of the new regulations they will have to adhere to and they will looking to carry this forward in the coming months.

It looks set to be a very exciting season with several new clubs and extra teams from existing clubs in the new set-up of eight divisions increasing the number of teams in the league to well over 90.

With last season’s Premier division leaders Whalley Range moving to the Cheshire League and several new faces making their debut at the top level it promises to be a fascinating opening few weeks in the top flight as well as all of the other divisions

Reigning Altrincham and District League champions Sale Amateurs will make their debut in division three and they showed their intent with a final friendly derby win by 5-1 over local rivals Aldermere.

Didsbury FC make their return to the league as they will be made up from players from Chorltonians, who lost their pitches at the Police Club due to a new school being built there and decided to fold the club and revive Didsbury FC.