After two seasons of travelling south, it’s time to go north again, as Mickleover look forward to being back in the Northern Premier League.
We had two strong seasons in the Southern Premier League Central, finishing one point outside the play-offs in the first year and losing out in the play-off semi finals last season.
So what’s changed since we left the Northern Premier at the end of 21/22 season?
There are 10 clubs remaining from our last NPL season, Hyde Utd, Ashton Utd and Gainsborough Trinity who were sixth, seventh and eighth respectively last season, while Lancaster were ninth, Whitby Town 12th, Morpeth Town 13th, FC United 14th, Matlock Town 15th, Bamber Bridge 16th and Basford Utd 18th.
Basford came with us to the Southern League in 22/23 along with our local rivals Ilkeston Town on promotion, before both went back to the NPL last season, to finish 18th and 11th.
That leaves half of the league who we haven’t faced in a league match in recent years. We played Guiseley in a pre-season friendly a few years back, after which they were relegated to the NPL at the end of 22/23 from the National League North.
We knocked Worksop Town out of the FA Cup last season 5-0, but having been promoted to the NPL last season, they finished the season in fifth place.
Warrington Rylands were promoted to the league in 22/23 and were another successful team last season, finishing fourth.
But it was recovering former league side Macclesfield that took the league by storm, having been promoted in 22/23 they finished second in the table at the first attempt in the NPL, but lost out to Marine in the play-off final.
Workington are another former league side moving up the ladder, but they struggled last season in 17th.
The final five teams, a new to the league this season, have all arrived via promotion or relegation, with Blyth Spartans having dropped from the National League North.
From the NPL Division One West we are now joined by Champions Leek Town, who we knocked out of the FA Trophy a couple of seasons ago. Prescot Cables have also been promoted from the West too, after finishing third.
Finally Hebburn Town, Champions from Division One East and runners up Stockton Town complete the 20 teams.
So there are local or fairly local Derbies with Matlock, Ilkeston, Leek and Basford, with a number of North Eastern visits at Blyth, Hebburn, Morpeth and Stockton, but our furthest trip this season will be Workington, with a round trip of 432 miles, hopefully on a Saturday.
We are all looking forward to the pre-season games, starting against Chesterfield on July 6th, and the fixtures announcement to see who we face on August 10th.