With Michael Black, Witton Albion

AFTER three weeks of inactivity brought about by more wetness than you would see at a Westlife concert, last Saturday finally saw Witton Albion's promotion bandwagon spark into life again.

Unfortunately, no-one told Marley's Wine Bar who proceeded to thump us 3-1 (not without a little assistance from a match official who could have been old Mr Marley himself).

At least the break gave our walking wounded time to recover from their injuries suffered in the pursuit of other forms of entertainment and not as they should have occurred, whilst playing for Witton. How many other teams can currently boast absentees who were injured fell walking in the Lakes, or playing seven-a-side for a works team who don't have any other actually footballers, or, and this is my favourite, the midfielder who damaged shoulder ligaments in a Judo match against a 12-year-old.

Our current injury crisis meant that for the first time this season our midfield was graced by yours truly and I'm sure no-one in our squad wants that to happen again, especially me. So all you bad back, sore shoulder, dodgy knee or plain old common cold merchants snap out of it so we can get the show back on the road again.

Finally, our congratulations go to Ewood Amateurs who recently triumphed in the Champions tournament. Perhaps it would be an idea for this concept to be turned into a permanent League allowing the various local leagues the opportunity to test themselves more regularly against each other.