On a non-league day tomorrow, Darlaston take a long trip up the M6 deep into Staffordshire to Stone Old Alleynians for the first of four consecutive away fixtures.

Tomorrow’s fixture is really important as Lye Town after their win in mid-week leap-frogged Darlaston into second place and due to the fixture schedule Lye are without a fixture on Saturday, therefore Darlaston can re-take second place with a win tomorrow, setting up Tuesday evenings massive game at league leaders Walsall Wood.

Stone and Darlaston met only two weeks ago, Darlaston winning 3-1 at The Paycare Stadium with goals from Keiron Miller in the first half. Early in the second half James Pritchard equalised for Stone, but a Lewis Gill penalty and a Josh Jones screamer from 25 yards gave Darlaston the win.

Stone’s only fixture since the clubs met was a magnificent 1-0 win at promotion chasing Highgate Town last Saturday, Joe Baxter scoring the all important goal in the 60th minute. Highgate United ended up with ten men after Jack Till was sent off with a straight red card and ex-Darlaston keeper Raajan Gill kept Stone in the game with some outstanding saves.

Darlaston currently lead the divisions form table with five wins and a draw in the last six games, whereas Stone are in 14th place with one win, two draws and three losses. Coincidentally they are also 14th in the league table having played 32 games (two more than Darlaston) securing twelve wins, five draws and fifteen losses and a -13 goal difference with 41 points, one of three teams on the same points total, including Studley who Darlaston beat last weekend 2-0.

With the transfer/signings deadline now passed, all squads now are settled and chosen to the end of the season. Darlaston’s only signing prior to the deadline was to secure the services of goal-keeper Leon Phillips on a dual registration with F.C. Stratford. Manager Dean Gill is clearly happy with his squad who are on a long unbeaten run and will be looking to put pressure on league leaders Walsall Wood and their promotion chasing rivals in the coming weeks.

Presently Darlaston’s injury list is the same as last week, with Liam Smith and Ryan Winwood recovering from injury and new signing Aaron Bishop may be available for his first game for the club, if not tomorrow, but certainly on Tuesday evening at Walsall Wood.

Having seen Stone’s advertisements on social media this week, it would appear that it is “pay what you want” on the gate on Saturday due to non-league day, so we would hope that Darlaston’s travelling support will support Stone with this very important initiative and it proved very successful when Darlaston tried this prior to Christmas. We understand that Stone will be supplying a programme which will be for sale on the turnstiles.

The game kicks off at 3.00 p.m. as usual and is being played at Stone Old Alleynians Kings Park ground, the full postal address is:
Kings Park
Hilderstone Road
Meir Heath
Stoke-On-Trent
ST3 7NY

PLEASE NOTE
We have been advised by tomorrows hosts they can only accept payments made in cas as they do not have any card facilities at the ground.

We hope to see a large Darlaston Town following tomorrow.

Please travel carefully.