RUGBY TOWN: Boldmere St Michaels are Saturday's visitors

Rugby Town welcome Boldmere St Michaels to Butlin Road this Saturday, a week on from the frustrating postponement of the home game against Heanor.

Whilst the bad weather pretty much wiped out the entire Midland Football League Premier Division schedule, the premature cancellation of Town’s game came as a surprise with temperatures expected to rise sufficiently later in the day to thaw out the early morning hard surface.

This Saturday’s visitors have won just three times in their 17 league outings to-date and Valley will be looking to complete the double over the Mikes after their comfortable 3-0 success at the Trevor Brown Memorial Ground at the end of September, when a Ruben Wiggins-Thomas brace and David Kolodynski strike secured the points.

In 20th place, Boldmere are without a win in five matches now, and they return to Butlin Road for the first time since 1981 when a John McGinty penalty and a goal by Ian Crawley gave Rugby victory in a FA Vase Preliminary Round replay in front of a crowd of 88.

Town manager Dave Stringer was looking forward to returning to action after the week’s break: “We know we need to try and kick-on again now. Whilst we have suffered from inconsistency at times this season, we have only lost three times in the league since the end of August and with two wins and a draw in our last three MFL games, we are on a bit of a run.

“Whilst I am a realist and accept that we haven’t fulfilled our potential so far this season, I truly believe that we have only been outplayed once at Bromsgrove and we really should be higher up the table. In too many games we just haven’t made the most of the chances that we have created or the periods when we have been on top, and have paid the price with dropped points.”

Rugby remain 12th in the table, but with the four teams above them within just two points of their total, a decent run of form could see them climb quickly up the rankings. Town face two of those four teams in their two subsequent fixtures after Saturday, with trips to Wulfrunians and Shepshed on December 23 and 26 respectively.

# The Rugby Salvation Army will be playing in the VS Bar ahead of Saturday’s fixture against Boldmere. Their performance is scheduled to start at 2.15pm.

# The club’s collection for local charity Hope4 continues this weekend, with spectators asked to donate items of tinned food, toiletries and underwear for the Borough’s homeless population.