Daisy Hill will round off the 2025/26 season on Saturday with a bid to retain the Atherton Charity Cup, when they host this year’s final against Pennington at the Ginge Power Stadium.
The final was originally due to be played earlier in the month, but had to be put back as Pennington had a backlog of fixtures in the Manchester League.
The game gives Daisy the chance to retain the trophy which they won last year with a 1-0 win against Hindsford, and although it is almost a full month since they completed their league fixtures, manager Nicky Hunt is looking for his squad to finish the season on a high.
“The way we’ve performed since I’ve been at the club has been really good,” said Hunt.
“We missed out on the play-offs, but I think that the players deserve to be in a cup final, have a chance to get some silverware, and get a bit of joy at the end of the season.
“We’ve probably got the youngest team in the league anyway, so they’re going to be eager to kick start again, and probably half of them don’t really want a break of four or five weeks off.
“We’ve done a couple of training sessions, one last week and again on Wednesday and we will be ready for Saturday - they’re all raring to go.”
Although Pennington have spent most of the season near the relegation zone in the Manchester League Premier Division, one division below Daisy, Hunt is nonetheless expecting a competitive game.
“I know quite a bit about them, I always do my research and they’ve not had the best season and have been fighting for survival,” said the Daisy boss.
“But they’ll look at this game as a chance to beat Daisy Hill, who are a league above, and a chance to put one over on us, no matter what season they’ve had and what season we’ve had.
“It’s 90 minutes of football and it can go either way.”
“We’re certainly taking the game seriously, and we’re ready for it.
“All the football’s finished in and around the area, and there’s only the FA Cup final on Saturday, so let’s get to it.
“Let’s get 300-400 people there if we can, raise money for charity and have a right good day, and hopefully we’ll get the victory and we can all celebrate afterwards.”
Kick off at the Ginge Power Stadium on Saturday is 2pm.
The game will be played to a finish, and a penalty shootout will decide the winners if the scores are level after 90 minutes.
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