Awfully quiet in here these days.

[peekay]

I'm terrible for forgetting to have a look regularly these days but then just found I was the last person to post at all here and that was back in April.

Hope everyone is well. There will be no third attempt at a title challenge for Leek this year, too many players left over the summer and the replacements are mostly from further down the pyramid. We kicked off today with a home defeat to Chasetown, I'll be happy enough with mid-table this time around.

The bookies have made Stafford favourites which Sultan may be able to comment on.

[Sultan of Cannock- SRFC]

Felicitations to you, peekay, and anyone else who may happen to stumble along this way. Superstition about jinxing our chances prevented me from commenting about Stafford Rangers while the season was continuing, but history will show that the "favourites" tag was justified in the end but by the narrowest of margins. I think the decisive factor for us was getting the pitch sorted out finally. This (alongside disappointingly early exits from the FA Cup and Trophy) meant that we had fewer home postponements than most, got the games played on time and for the most part won, banking the points and leaving others to play catch up. As it was, Shaw Lane Aquaforce closed the gap from 18 points to only finish one behind us at the end, the fixture backlog catching up on them in the end.

So we move on back up to the NPL Premier. Already the potential increased travelling has cost us last years top scorer, Ben Haseley, due to his work commitments. We've just had council approval to cover the Shed End again so things are coming together better off the pitch too, so onwards and upwards. Good Luck for the new season, hopefully our next league meeting will be because you've come up rather than we've gone back down...