HAD it not been for last Saturday’s game at home to Wyre Villa being postponed, Crooklands Casuals would be preparing to play their last match of the 2018/10 West Lancashire League season tomorrow.

Conversely, tomorrow’s trip to Millom for the derby clash in Division One tomorrow sees them taking on a side who have six games in hand on them due to postponements caused by cup matches and the weather.

Cassies do, at least, have the opportunity to extend their season by beating Ulverston Rangers in the to-be-rearranged Furness Senior Cup quarter-final, but manager Jon Bell is still struggling to get his head around the fact their league season will be over by this time next month.

“It’s a bit of a strange one because we’ve got this game, then we’re off for another two or three weeks,” said Bell.

“Then we’ve got our last league game and the cup quarter-final, and if we were to get through that we’d probably have to wait another month to play in the semi-final. We’re just taking it as it comes at the moment.

“We hadn’t had a game called off up until the Ulverston game two weeks ago so we weren’t used to it and I think Millom have been the opposite. They’ve had a few off and they’ve got five or six games in the league.”

The robust nature of the pitch at Lesh Lane means Crooklands have been able to get games on when others fall during the winter and will now spend much of the closing weeks of the campaign waiting to find out their final finishing position.

While they could drop lower than their current position of sixth, there are no concerns about falling into a relegation battle this year.

“Last season we were a bit closer to the bottom and worried about going down, but we got some wins later on in the season to make us safe,” said Bell.

“There have been no worries like that this time around.

“We’ve only got two games left now, but we were in decent enough form before the break and we’re hoping we can carry it on up until the end of the season.”

Tomorrow sees the cups take priority for some of Crooklands’ local rivals, with Ulverston hosting Eagley and Askam United travelling to Lostock St Gerards in the quarter-finals of the Presidents Cup, and Dalton United hosting Division Two leaders Horwich St Mary’s Victoria in the Challenge Cup quarter-finals.

Elsewhere, Vickerstown head to Southport Hesketh in the Premier Division, Hawcoat Park are at Milnthorpe Corinthians in Division One and Furness Rovers host Mill Hill St Peters in Division Two.