Electric match at The Lakeland Radio

4:13pm Friday 15th August 2008

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What a game Kendal were involved in on Wednesday night with Sunderland. from 4-2 up at half time to a heavy 9-4 defeat in the 2nd half, the whole night was pretty crazy.

For a pre season friendly it certainly lived up to the hype surrounding it in it's build up.

Before the match I did the team photograph which should be online soon, a chance for the squad to show off their new kit with new sponsors, whom if i can remember are now Bridge Joinery.

And too top the night off Sir Tom Finney and Everton's Leon Osman were at the ground on Wednesday night to watch the match. Leon came to see his brother Carl play for Kendal. Understandably both Sir Tom Finney and Leon Osman were mobbed by both sets of supporters on the night.

Town in the 1st half were awesome, if they do that for 90 minutes in The Unibond League they will be hard to beat. In the 2nd half Sunderland obviously had a rollicking by their manager at half time, and came out stepped their game up and scored 7 unanswered goals.

So a heavy defeat for Kendal in the end but the experience will stand Kendal in good stead for the new season.

And on to the new season, Kendals Unibond campaign starts on Saturday with an away trip to Ilkeston whom have a new manager and alot of new players within their team. Expectations will be high for Ilkeston's fans and with the new players still bedding into the side it could be a good time to play them this weekend.

That said being the misery that i can be it is Ilkeston's 1st home game of the season and they will want to impress and get off to a flier. Kendal do have a good record against Ilkeston though, winning their 3-2 last season down to 10 men and Jon Forbes in goal, so hopefully we can get a positive result at the weekend.

Of course after Ilkeston we then have a home midweek game with Marine who we hit for 6 last season, it would be nice for that score line to happen again but i think it will be a tighter affair this time round, they themselves wll have Peter Cumiskey playing for them who makes a heck of a difference for them.

Town have got a few suspensions for The Ilkeston and the Marine game coming up. Lee Ashcroft is out serving a suspension and Michael Cole is also serving a suspension for a sending off from last season which was very harsh to say the least.

Ashy and Coley out gives other players an opportunity, Craig Hobson will be given his chance up front whilst i think Gary Baker will be given his chance in Michael Coles position.

A good start is key for Kendal, last season we lost for the 1st 2 matches in a row, fortunately the team pulled together but they don't want to be getting off to a bad start in what will be a very difficult league this season. The likes of Bradford Park Avenue have splashed the cash on players, Leigh RMI have been reborn as Leigh Genesis and have also gone full time, and after watching them vs Lancaster a few weeks ago I think they will be the team to beat this season.

So tough challenges ahead for Kendal, I don't forsee Town in a relegation scrap i can only see improvements from 11th place last season in this campaign.

We do need to step our away form up though this season, last season started off alright away from home but as the season petered out we started to drop points away from The Lakeland Radio Stadium.

Our home form has been sorted out from the start of last season, The Lakeland Radio Stadium is pretty much a fortress now and it's never easy for opposing teams to play their, so with that sorted now, hopefully the away form will improve.

So another interesting campaign ahead, everything is pretty positve at the club right now. Looking forward to the big kick off.

My next blog will be next Wednesday with information from both the Ilkeston and Marine matches.

You can check my site out on www.myspace.com/theblackandwhitearmy or the official site and forum which is on www.kendaltownfootballclub.co.uk Hope you enjoy the weekend See you next week Richard :)