Leek Town (H) – Match Preview

After a hectic August, it is nice to have breaks between matches, as a week after our last one we now have our next

We have a chance, albeit slim, to go to the top of the league if we beat Leek Town, and it only requires Cleethorpes and Avro to drop points.

The issue with that requirement is that Cleethorpes have the best GD, and Avro are the highest-scoring side in all of Step 3

As things stand, we are just one of four teams predicted to have over a 10% chance of finishing first.

The other three teams are Cleethorpes, Avro, and Warrington Rylands

Leek, on the other hand, have less than a 5% chance of finishing anything higher than 14th

But we are also 8 matches in, so these predictions mean very little outside of speculation and hoping

What isn’t a simulation, though, is that we are one game away from going unbeaten at Green Lane across a year.

As mentioned a while back, our last defeat at home came against Emley on the 23rd of August 2025

That does mean it has been over a year since our last defeat, but our next home match after the Emley fixture came in against Silsden, where we picked up that staggering 10-1 win.

Since then, we have kept 25 teams at bay, and with the Silsden match played on the 13th of September, we are now less than 48 hours away from that milestone.

There have been some close calls throughout the run, but none has been closer than the 3-3 draw against Dunston, in which Brad Fewster scored the equaliser in the dying seconds to level the match.

Outside of those 2, there was also the 6-1 win against Grimsby Borough, the 7-0 against Brighouse, the 3-2 against FC United, and most notably, the 4-2 win against Matlock Town.

Hopefully, the next year at Green Lane is just as exciting and just as successful

Leek Town’s history spans back to 1946, though football in Leek was played since 1876.

After a successful early history, the Blues eventually stagnated in the early 2000s, not long after achieving promotion to, and then being relegated from, the Conference

However, there was also a very successful cup run in the midst of that, as starting from the first qualifying round, Leek would produce a dramatic streak that saw them beat: Hednesford Town, Moor Green, Newtown, Spennymoor United, Nuneaton Borough, Telford United, Darlington, and Stafford Rangers.

That run would ultimately send them to Wembley, where they would face Barrow FC, though the dream was crushed as Leek lost 3-0. Still, the Wembley run can never be forgotten.

Back to the league, shuffling saw the side flutter around several Step 4 leagues after another relegation, and after stints in Division One South, West, and South East, they were eventually promoted back to Step 3 in the 2023-24 season, from Division One West.

The 2024-25 campaign saw them play their first Step 3 season since 2008. In that season, they finished 15th, ahead of FC United, Whitby, and a team we know all too well, in Matlock Town

Last season was a vastly different one for the Blues, though, as they narrowly missed out on the playoffs by a point, and this campaign so far has seen the side falter, as they sit outside the relegation zone on GD, and that is heavily due to their Battle of the Vegans rival, Quorn FC, having a much worse difference.

On paper, this shouldn’t be the trickiest of fixtures, but, as always with football, there is no way to tell what will happen on the day.

Your only option? Turn up and support the Steelmen!