Brighouse Town (A) – Match Preview

If, like me, you're still revelling in the win against Bradford, then I'm also guessing your hopes are high for Saturday

With his brace against our last opponents, Adam Boyes has now already passed the 20 league goal mark, and he isn’t alone in the top scorers table, with 3 of the league’s 4 top scorers all scoring for the Steelmen.

Bradley Fewster and Oscar Fletcher are on 13 and 9 goals respectively, meaning those 3 alone have 43 goals…by game week 18.

Curtis Round and Louis Johnson are both on 7 goals each as well, finding themselves in the top 100 goalscorers in all of Step 4.

A positive ode to Saturday though, is that of Fewster’s league goals, 4 have come at home, with the other 9 all coming at opposition grounds, with his most notable performance being his hat trick against Ossett.

As for the Steelmen overall, our win combined with Matlock’s loss means we are now sat nine points clear at the top of the league, and in all honesty it may as well be 12 points, with us also having a goal difference nearing +50.

As of right now, Matlock are as close to us as they are to our next opponents, Brighouse, who are currently 11th in the league.

They are also 29 goals behind us, meaning they are closer in GD to 19th placed Newton Aycliffe than they are to us.

The rest of this month sees just 2 other games for us, as we host North Ferriby on the 22nd and end the month with a trip to bottom placed Blyth Town.

Fingers crossed, we get 9 points out of 9, and if we do, we can reach 51 points

51 points in November, what on earth is this team…

As for Brighouse, they have been in great form recently, going on a 6 game unbeaten run that has seen them pick up many decent results.

A 4-1 victory against Hallam preceded a pair of 1–0 wins against Pontefract, and Blyth Spartans, and before a 1-1 draw against Dunston on the 18th of October was a 1-0 win versus Garforth and a 4-1 win against Lincoln United.

An 88th minute goal was the only reason they lost to Emley, and a 3-minute double from Matlock is what sank their ship on the 4th of October too.

A complete revitalisation from the start of the season, as whilst looking at the league table I was struggling to figure out how they still had a negative goal difference

And then I found it. Between the 20th of August and 20th of September, Brighouse played 6 league matches. In that time, they had scored 3, but conceded 15. There was also a 4-1 defeat to Dunston in the FA Trophy too, further condemning them to a frustrating couple of months.

Luckily for them, and potentially unluckily for us though, that bad form seems to have been quickly overwritten, and they now look like quite a decent side.

Narrowly losing to sides in 2nd and 4th is always going to be a positive, but now the test is to see how they will fare against 1st.

Town’s last trophy came in the 2013-14 season, where they won the Northern Counties East League, and their stint in the NPL East has seen them remain here, even with a reprieve from relegation in the 2023-24 campaign, due to Marske United’s resignation.

No matter what happens in the seasons to come, or what has happened in the past, the only real focus is what happens on Saturday.

I will hopefully see you at Brighouse, but if you aren’t able to make it then there will be live updates on our Twitter/X page.

Take care, and up the Steelmen!