Men's Team

The lads fought hard against top of the table Workington but a late goal from Kain Dean wasn't enough to prevent us from slipping to a 2-1 defeat. We are still in the play off places and Calum and his team are working wonders to keep us in there, we are entering a defining part of the season and the team will need your support more than ever.

Next, we travel to Trafford which has always been a tough place for us to play but has also always been a good surface to play on, so it should be an interesting game.

We then host Marine on Tuesday in what is sure to be a thrilling encounter, we were very unlucky to lose 3-1 at Marine after dominating the first half and if we put in a similar performance then we can win the game.

Linnets Ladies

The Ladies continued their improved form with a great 5-1 win over West Kirby Ladies at the APEC on Sunday. That's now back-to-back wins and three games unbeaten for the Linnets and it's a testament to the hard work of Toddy and his team that they have been able to turn their season round so dramatically. We now sit 7th in the North West Women's Regional League Division One South.

Next up for the Ladies is a trip to the Tameside Stadium to play Curzon Ashton Women on Sunday 6th February at 2pm.

Development Team

New manager Dean Vian continued the great start to his rein with a 2-0 away win over AFC Knowsley U21s. The lads now sit 5th in North West Under 21 Development League Premier Division.

Next up for the lads is yet another away game against Chorley FC U21 on Sunday 6th February at 4.30pm.

ESPFA Academy

Our ESPFA Academy side had a cup game at the APEC Taxis Stadium on Thursday against Skelmersdale United and it was another comprehensive win for the lads this time by seven goals to one. This continues their 100% start to the season, and I don't want to jinx anything, but I really can't see them losing.

Their next match is at the APEC Taxis Stadium against Belper Town on Thursday 10th February at 12pm.

Crowd Trouble

We have doubled our average attendances this season and the attendance of 963 against Workington broke our attendance record for a league game. We are delighted in the increase in attendances, and I feel that the majority of our new fans have embraced the ethos of Runcorn Linnets. Whilst working hard on increasing attendances, we have also worked hard on continuing our tradition of being a community and family club. Unfortunately, a minority of those people attending our games are completely undermining that with unacceptable behaviour.

There seems to be a problem across all of football at the moment with spectators misbehaving and we are not immune to that. We welcome all new fans to the APEC but throwing anything onto the pitch and aggressive behaviour towards opposition players is completely unacceptable and cannot be tolerated. Our matchday staff are all volunteers and they should not have to deal with this kind of behaviour.

The board have been discussing the issues since the Workington game and we will do everything in our power to resolve these issues. However, the best way to resolve these issues is for them to stop happening, so I'm appealing to anyone involved in any of the trouble we have had this season, please stop! It's not fair on our matchday volunteers, officials and all the other hundreds of fans who just want to watch a good game of football.

Thank you for reading.

Dave Jones

Runcorn Linnets FC - Chairman