ON some Saturday mornings amateur football players in Bolton don't have time to do much more than have breakfast and a cup of tea before meeting up with their team-mates for a game.

The match isn't until 3pm but the early start is necessary because it is in Cumbria.

It seems crazy Bolton clubs play opponents from Barrow and surrounding areas in what is essentially local football, but it has been a regular occurrence in the West Lancashire League for 20 years.

It happens because Cumbria does not have enough clubs of the right level – step seven in the non-league pyramid – to form its own league so they have to play in the West Lancashire League.

Six Bolton clubs – Turton, Tempest United, Eagley, Stoneclough, Chew Moor Brook and Horwich St Mary's Victoria – combined with 15 clubs from Cumbria, form exactly half of the West Lancs League's 42 clubs.

Today Eagley will travel 80 miles to Crooklands Casuals near Barrow, while Ulverston Rangers will pass them on the motorway as they head south to Stoneclough.

It would be much easier if Eagley played Stoneclough and Crooklands played Ulverston, of course, as the distance in both cases would be seven miles.

The ridiculous travel doesn't end there for Stoneclough today either as their second team are also away in Cumbria in a standard which, no disrespect, is really not worth travelling all that way for.

There are plenty of such examples in the West Lancashire League and while no one involved at the local clubs is advocating a return to the days of the Bolton Combination when all the big local clubs were in one league up to 20 years ago, many often lament the travel factor.

It should be said travelling to the nearest part of Cumbria, just north of Morecambe, is less of a problem to the Bolton clubs than the Furness peninsula which can take twice as long.

One local club who had enough of it were Bolton County who left the West Lancashire League for the Manchester League two years ago.

Their club secretary Phil Breakell said at the time: “We were having six trips to Barrow a season and that meant having to get a mini bus.

“It [being in the Manchester League] saves a massive amount of cost.

“The games are all 2pm kicks off so we are home virtually by 4.45pm so people who go out Saturday night prefer it.

“People at the club felt they had done enough travelling over the 12 years.

"There’s a lot less travelling and the standard is good. And we’ve got a lot of local teams to play.

“Hindsford, Elton Vale, Atherton Town, Breightmet, Leigh Athletic, Pennington – they’re all decent clubs and local to us.”

Clubs often lament the Bolton-to-Cumbria treks in the West Lancashire League are harder to raise teams for, especially if they're struggling, and can give rise to sudden bouts of what one local clubman refers to 'Barrow flu'.

There is also a strange coincidence of players having to work more often on the Saturdays their team is away in Cumbria.

Bolton clubs are generally happy in the West Lancashire League but the journeys to the Barrow area are a downside.

It looks unlikely to change, however, unless there is a complete restructure of leagues, not just in Lancashire and Cumbria but maybe in Cheshire and the North East as well.

And no one is expecting that to happen.