RACA host fellow play off hopefuls Esh Winning at the Oldhaulage Stadium on Saturday in a game that hopefully should beat the weather. The Stags recently had the shock of seeing manager Bobby Coltman and assistant Shane Gavin leave the third placed club to join another play off hopeful in Thornaby, the club responding by installing Jonny Swift as player manager for the rest of the season. Like ourselves, Esh Winning haven’t played a competitive game since 28th December and had just seen their promotion push falter a little with two defeats in their last three games, all played at West Terrace. RACA won this season’s encounter there too back in early August with the now departed Matty Harrison netting the only goal of the game. Recent encounters have been very much in Albion’s favour with six of the last seven results going our way, the other being a 3-3 draw. A win for the Albion might well be welcomed by a few other play off hopefuls as it has looked for a while than only one play off place was up for grabs with the top four in the table pulling a little clear, but a home win would pull the Stags back into the mix a little, & more importantly boost our chances of reaching to top 5.

Kick off is 3pm if you can make it, & hopefully you can, to cheer on the lads to a perfect start to 2025. Howay the RACA!

RACA lost 3-4 at Newcastle Blue Star in this mid-season friendly despite leading 3-1 at the interval. Star took the lead on 8 minutes with a Dan Lanning goal but a quickfire Louis Calvert hattrick with goals in the 17th, 21st and 24th minutes had Albion 3-1 up at half time. Blue Star turned the game on its head in the second half with goals from Nathan Kidd (47), Dan Lanning (53 pen) and Liam Clavering (75) to win the encounter.

It was a great opportunity for Manager Nathan Beckham to field the new signings in a combative game and to assess their merits before our league match with Esh Winning on Saturday.

Due to the lack of competitive football due to frozen pitches. Albion have arranged a friendly with Newcastle Blue Star at Scotswood on Tuesday evening with a 7:30pm kick off. The weather is expected to get significantly milder from Sunday so we’re hopeful this game will go ahead. Admission for this game is £1

Unfortunately tomorrow’s game against Yarm & Eaglescliffe has fallen foul of the freezing weather. Details of the date of the re-arranged game will be given as soon as known but we do have a new date for the twice postponed home game v Sunderland RCA which is Wednesday 29th January with a 7:30 kick off

RACA are scheduled to play fellow promotion hopefuls Yarm & Eaglescliffe on Saturday but obviously the game at Bedford Terrace is far from certain to go ahead with freezing conditions forecast over the weekend. If it does beat the weather it would be a second consecutive game on Teesside following our trip to Redcar Town in our final game of 2024. The Eagles are having a fine season, currently in second place in the table in only their second season at this level, and have scored 80 goals (72 in the league) with Tom Atkinson netting an impressive 30 times. Yarm have gone six games unbeaten but like us haven’t played since 28th December when they were held 1-1 by Newcastle University while the two sides met at Kingsley Park in the opening fixture of the season where we ran out 1-0 winners thanks to a Joe Groves-Forbes goal.

If the game’s on & you plan to head down, the post code for Bedford Terrace is TS23 4AE. Howay the RACA!

Unfortunately due to a frozen pitch, tonight’s game against Sunderland RCA has been postponed. Details to follow on the re-arranged game

The club have been busy bolstering the injury ridden squad by signing Luke Page from Sunderland West End, Thomas White as goalkeeper cover from Haltwhistle Jubilee, Luke McCabe from Seaham Red Star and former Bedlington Terrier Joe Thompson. More details on these lads later

After a free Saturday, our next scheduled game weather permitting is on Wednesday evening when we welcome Sunderland RCA for a re-arranged game at NE40 after a gap of 14 years since they were last up. The clubs did meet at Meadow Park earlier this season where RACA edged out the Wearsiders 3-2 with goals from Calvert, Skivington and Salim earning the three points. Following relegation last season RCA have had a disappointing season this time round too, sitting down in 20th place in the table but have at least seen an upturn in fortunes on the road, having just lost one of their last four away games. Sunderland will go into the game relatively fresh having seen their derby game against Sunderland West End on Saturday postponed due to a frozen pitch.

The weather forecast isn’t great for Wednesday with sub-zero temperatures expected but if it does go ahead, then the kick off is at the usual 7:30pm. Keep up to date with developments of Wednesday via our Twitter feed, the Northern League website & on here. Here’s hoping for a go-ahead & Howay the RACA.

This month’s lucky winners are-

1st prize No 1 D Cartner who wins £100

2nd Prize No 56 D Willis who wins £75

3rd Prize No 70 C Thompson who wins £25

Well done to our three winners, if you’d like to take part in this monthly fundraiser from just £5 a month, please contact us via the usual channels on the foot of the homepage or contact Paul le Patourel at the club on 07720 413390 . Thank-you

Albion have signed midfielder Roman Sparks from neighbours Prudhoe YC Seniors, the 21 year old having also played for Gateshead Rutherford in the Northern Alliance Premier League. Welcome aboard Roman.