Ahead of a break for the FA Vase next weekend, Hinckley AFC will look to end their opening batch of league fixtures strongly when they face AFC Bridgnorth at Kirkby Road on Friday night.
AFC are unbeaten since the loss to Heather St John’s in the second game of the season, extending the unbeaten run to eight since then.
And a win over Bridgnorth would complete an near-perfect run of fixtures ahead of a two-week break from Division One action, the draw with Chelmsley Town the only dropped points since Heather.
The opposition
Heading to Kirkby Road on Friday are a Bridgnorth side who sit 16th with nine points from their nine games so far.
They have, though, taken points off Droitwich Spa in a 2-2 draw with their two wins coming against Wolves Sporting and Smethwick Rangers. Their last outing was a 1-0 defeat to Nuneaton Griff in which only a long-range free-kick separated them from a Griff side who sit in the play-offs. Each of their nine league games has been close – with no more than two goals separating the sides in any of them.
Luke Morris and the former Worcester City goal threat Mark Danks have four apiece and are their joint-leading scorers so far.
Previous meetings
Hinckley won both meetings last season – a 5-2 win at Crown Meadow in December which was trickier than the scoreline suggests, and finished in near darkness following a partial floodlight failure in which AFC had to come from behind. The win at Kirkby Road was more comfortable, Chandler Pegg hitting a hat-trick in a 7-0 success.
From the dressing room
“I’m glad they stayed up last season – Steve took over late on last season, and he’s a good guy – we get on really well with him and thank him for coming over on a Friday night. This season they’ve been competitive in every game – they held Droitwich to a draw and have picked up some decent results. Their points tally doesn’t really reflect how they’ve done and they’ve played a lot of teams who are towards the top of the table. They also played on Wednesday in a cup match so have a quick turnaround – we know exactly how that feels from our Saturday to Monday double headers!”
Joe Conneely
Key info
Adults: £6
Concessions: £4
Under 16s: £2 (FREE with HAFC Junior membership card)
