LONGRIDGE TOWN PREVIEW
Merry Christmas! All being well, after three long weeks without a game, the weather has relented and we look forward with renewed enthusiasm to finally getting back on the park with a trip to the fringes of Preston to play Longridge Town.
MATCH: Longridge Town v Ramsbottom United
VENUE: Inglewhite Road, Longridge, Preston, PR3 2NA
COMPETITION: North West Counties League Premier Division
DATE: Saturday 27th December 2025
KICK-OFF: 3:00pm
ADMISSION: Adults – £8, Concessions – £6, U12-U18 – £2, U11 FREE
OVERVIEW:
At long last, we can finally get back on the park! And the final match of 2025 sees the Rams head north to Longridge hoping that the blip of the back end of November and early December has passed with the elongated break.
Without a win in their last four games, the Rams were forced to sit on the sidelines whilst match after match fell by the wayside with a variety of waterlogged pitches seeing Steve Wilkes’ side drop to fourth place in the table, five points behind the leaders Padiham who have played three more games. But whilst the Rams haven’t played, the sides around have climbed away too much.
Standing in wait are Longridge Town for the first time this season on a ground where they have one of the better records in the league this season, winning eight of their 12 on home soil and on a good run of three wins in a row and just one defeat in their last six – a reverse at home to FC Isle of Man 5-2.
With 38 points from their 24 games played, they are just nine points shy of the play-off line with games in hand so will be harbouring hopes of joining the end of season bun-fight.
As for the Rams, they have a full bill of health in the squad and with a couple of new additions adding to the battle for places so look forward to this game to turn things around from their recent (or semi-recent anyway!) slip-ups.
Let’s get back to some games and get behind the lads as they close the gap on those ahead in the table.
HISTORY
Our history against Longridge Town is only one of fairly recent meetings, in the last two seasons in the NWCFL. The head to head is one win each with two draws.
The first ever meeting was on 22 August 2023 when a 99th minute winner from Johnny Black gave the Rams a 2-1 victory and the story was similar in early November when two injury time goals from Matt Dudley and Luke Sephton grabbed a late point at the HWRS, hauling themselves up from 3-1 down to share the spoils – not that Longridge’s manager Lee Ashcroft saw it as he was sent off on the hour mark.
Last season however, it was much more in Longridge’s favour. Despite Oscar Radcliffe’s early strike, the home side hit three times in the second half to claim a comfortable 3-1 victory before the return fixture was a game of two halves – Harvey Whyte and Tom Hoyle’s goals in the space of three first-half minutes gave the Rams a 2-0 interval lead only for the visitors to equalise and take a 2-2 away.
STEVE WILKES SAYS:
“Merry Christmas to all of our supporters and thank you for all the support this season so far. Really hoping that we can finally get back to playing some football this week after a three-week break which might have come at a good time for us as we need to get back to winning ways having not won in the last four league and cup games.
“But we know how difficult the trip to Longridge will be, they have a good home record and are going well so we know we need to be at our best.”
