Presteigne St Andrews FC will head into a tough-looking weekend with depleted squads as a number of players – who were under the impression there was no first-team match – had made arrangements to do other things.
Saturday, 23 August was an FAW Trophy conference date and, when the club received a bye in that competition, it was assumed we would either be informed of a replacement league fixture or would have a blank Saturday.
For some reason, no official notification of the Spar Mid Wales League trip to Bont came through to the secretary and so the management team was understandably under the impression we had no fixture.
In fact, we only learned we did have a first-team game tomorrow when George Lancett informed me by email on Monday, 18 August – a good job he did, or we might only have found out in the local press on Friday.
The upshot is that a number of players are unavailable for the trip to Bont and so this means Jamie Allen has had to call on Reserve-team boss Mark Weiland to free up some of his players.
This will hardly help the Ressies who are facing a difficult-looking Mid Wales League (South) fixture when Carno Reserves will come to Llanandras Park (kick off 2.30pm).
'Weedo' will be looking for a response from his players after they ran into a useful Llandrindod Wells Reserves side on Thursday night, but it will be frustrating for him that he will be forced into changes.
But, such is the lot of the Reserve-team manager that you have to help out the first team when they call on you, but it does seem harsh on the club that we end up having to effectively field two weakened sides through no fault of our own.
Before anyone asks, yes, we did contact the Spar League and point out that we hadn't been informed of the game, but were told that if we didn't fulfil the fixture then we would face a fine and a three-point deduction.
So, I suppose we will have to get on with it, but it's far from ideal – here's hoping both sides can get something positive from the weekend.