The sun has been shining at Ski resorts over the last week and visitor numbers are increasing due to the great weather and the number of Star FC footballers who are abandoning the football season back home. This has left the ski areas packed on busier runs and icy on the exposed pistes in the morning where the snow has refrozen overnight. The snow conditions at various resorts are excellent thanks to cold temperatures preserving the snow despite the sunny weather this week. Many slopes  have been well skied over the weekend and the some resorts report that the sun is softening the snow by midday but the pisted runs remain in excellent condition. The temperatures have also been well below freezing allowing snow making to add snow to the worn and icy patches on exposed and busier runs. The forecast is for predominantly sunny skies this week with slightly cloudy weather on Tuesday and Friday. Light dustings of snow are forecast this week.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the club has three League fixtures to fulfil this weekend as it wages a battle to pull away from the bottom of the table on one front, and chases promotion on another two.

Both the First and Reserve teams play Bourton Rovers, which leaves us all hoping that there will not be an outbreak of Bourtonitis such as that which afflicted the club in the year 2000.  8 years ago, the thought of playing the team from the Cotswold was capable of causing such a reaction that certain players were not seen again for the best part of three years.  Thankfully, Garry has since recovered and, following Bourton’s excellent win last week, this game is now a real 6 pointer.  Frank Ashworth has survived his Birthday weekend and is now re-registered with the Northern Senior League, so he is back in the squad for the trip to Bourton, as is Jordan Kontarines following his injury.

The Reserve team, meanwhile, will be entertaining Bourton Rovers’ Reserves having noted that the visitors pushed AC Olympia all the way last weekend before finally losing out to the odd goal in seven.  Once again, a much changed squad will be battling to consolidate the team’s position in second place, with Dan Robinson returning and Kieran Bermingham retaining his place following his debut last weekend.  With at least 6 Reserve Team squad members unavailable to Manager Mark Cottell this week, Ben Hall and Andy Mole are also drafted in to give the side additional options.

All of which means that the third team, who are now 5^th in Division Five and undefeated in their last 12 matches, stretching back to late September, have, once again, had to ring the changes to field a competitive side.  A dearth of Central Midfielders will test the strategic genius of the Joint Managers but they retain the services of the in-form Steve Paine and will be looking to give a debut to Chris Crichton as they travel to Tewkesbury Dynamos Reserves.  The home side play at Tewkesbury School and this will be their first home game since December 22^nd.  In the meantime, they have played 4 consecutive away League games, and in winning the last three have scored a total of 17 goals.