CLITHEROE player-boss Lee Sculpher is confident his side will be fit and ready for the festive season - the football side of it that is.

It is well documented that professional footballers cancel Christmas - they train on Christmas Day and must play on Boxing Day and often on New Year's Day.

Non-Leaguers also play on Boxing Day and New Year's Day, but their wages hardly compensate them for staying away from the ale and the Christmas pudding.

But Sculpher says he is confident his players will turn up ready for their Boxing Day clash against Ramsbottom.

"I think the better a side is doing the more seriously the players take it," said Sculpher. "If a team is mid-table, one or two players might let it slip but we are a on a run at the moment so I am certain the players will refrain from the usual festivities so they are ready for our games."

Clitheroe, who are unbeaten in 12 matches, meet a side who are unbeaten in 21 tomorrow when they travel to Newcastle Town in NWCL Division One.

The Blues, through to the quarter finals of the Worthington Trophy, have won seven of their last 10 league games; Newcastle have won six.

And the Staffordshire side will be hoping to close the seven-point gap between the two clubs with a win.

"They were the last team to beat us," said Sculpher. "The win over Prescot Cables in the cup last week was probably the best we have played this season. We had played them twice already and not beaten them so I think the players just wanted to prove they could."

Clitheroe meet Skelmersdale - a side they have beaten twice already this year - at home in the quarter finals.