Pre-season moves on to Padiham

Last updated : 12 August 2014 By Tony Scholes
Jason Gilchrist scored a hat trick last year

It's good to see it back on a midweek evening too. Last year's was played on a Saturday morning prior to the first team home game against Sparta Rotterdam and didn't attract the biggest of attendances.

The Burnley team that morning were in top form. We won the game 4-0 with Jason Gilchrist bagging a hat trick and Jamie Frost, who had an outstanding game alongside Gilchrist, netting the fourth.

Only five of the players who were in action that night are no longer with the club. Nick Liversedge, Jack Errington and Kyle Brownhill all played with Archie Love coming on as a substitute. We also included trialist Andrew Musungu who had been released by Stoke.

I don't envisage any of the recognised first team squad featuring tonight other than the young players who have been involved in the pre-season, the likes of Gilchrist, Tom Anderson and Steven Hewitt. We are likely to select from the recognised development squad with some of the youth team involved.

Our hosts Padiham are embarking on a second season in the Evo-Stik League First Division North after winning promotion in 2013. They ended that season in 19th place in the 22 team league but were never under any threat of relegation and were 13 points clear of the drop zone at the end of the season.

They kick off their 2014/15 season this Saturday with a home game against Spennymoor Town who themselves have won promotion this year having won the Ebac Northern League Division One last season.

On Saturday Padiham played a Blackburn team and drew the game 0-0; tonight is their final pre-season fixture.

Tonight's game kicks off at 7 p.m. and admission is £5 adults, £2 concessions with under 12s admitted free of charge.