ANOTHER blank weekend due to the weather, so I was fortunate to find a game to watch on Saturday.

My assistant Nobby Bush and myself went to watch his son play for Bath City Reserves in their 2-0 victory over Cadbury Heath. It was very wet and pretty cold, but full marks to the Cadbury Heath officials for getting the game on.

This Saturday we are entering the 17th week of our football season. Most people recognise that a football season should run for a MAXIMUM of 40 weeks. There are a total of 380 games to be played in the Screwfix Direct League Premier Division this season, therefore after 17 weeks of a season clubs should have played a minimum of 160 games. This works out at an average of 16 games each. Bearing in mind there is no guarantee that some sides won't have decent cup runs in the later months and that the weather may continue to get worse, it is somewhat alarming to me that some teams have only played nine league games while we at Chippenham have only played 12.

We started our season a week before the Nationwide Conference, but while we are still well down on our games played, most of their team are already into the 20s.

So what does this all mean I hear you ask.

Well, obviously we start earlier in the FA Cup, but that is no real excuse, as at Chippenham Town, as with all other teams in our division, we have excellent floodlights. However it is amazing to me that although we are nearly in December our game against Welton on Wednesday was our first midweek home game. This is a recipe for disaster and unless we get more games played in the near future then any hopes we had of gaining promotion will be lost.

No one can convince me that it is because we never got enough games played in the early part of last season that we missed out on third place. Who is to say it won't mean missing out on promotion this year?

Three weeks ago I watched Barking in the FA Carlsberg Vase. Since that night Barking have played six times while we have only played against Welton. The Ryman League gives their clubs games every week, but for some reason the Screwfix League do not. I hope somebody is reading this and can quickly avoid the fixture pile up that I can see looming for every club. I am not blaming any team or individual for this situation, but we all need to pull together to prevent any future problems.

I was interested to read the comments made by the chairman of Swindon Town after their terrible result against Stoke on Saturday. Fair play to him I say. We are all judged on results and Swindon's over the last two years have been very poor.

I was tempted to go and support them on Saturday, but until they start to produce a winning team I think they may have a difficult time ahead of them.

Tomorrow we are away to Hallen in the Les Phillips Cup. Hallen are on the crest of a fabulous run and we could not have asked for a harder game.

For those supporters who don't know where their ground is, join the club.

However I'm sure we will all find it.

Good luck to all the other Wiltshire sides on Saturday.