Barton Town’s head of media Aaron Irwin provides us with his analysis of The Swans’ season thus far.
Irwin: Barton Town head to Leeds to take on Yorkshire Amateur this weekend with the Swans currently top of the NCEL Premier.
The Swans have had their best start to a season since 2018/19 while the Ammers prop up the table at this time.
The visitors’ season began with a 0-0 stalemate against Albion Sports before an FA Cup exit at the hands of Lincolnshire rivals Bottesford Town – being dumped out on penalties in the replay after a thrilling 3-3 draw.
Town had the perfect response by winning back-to-back games against Eccleshill United and Goole AFC, the latter seeing both manager and assistant manager on the scoresheet in a 2-1 win.
Draws with Maltby Main and Garforth Town followed before the Swans exacted revenge on Bottesford in the league by securing a 2-0 win at Birch Park.
An excellent win at Hemsworth Miners Welfare was followed up by the Swans’ first league defeat of the season after eight fixtures. Hosting Frickley Athletic, Barton lost out to a late winner.
Barton responded by pulling off an excellent 2-0 win at newly-promoted Hallam to return to the summit heading into this weekend’s game.
The Swans boast the best defence in the league, conceding just four goals in nine games and keeping six clean sheets. Their top scorer is Tom Waudby who has five goals for the season already.
There’s a milestone to be celebrated within the Swans camp at The Ammers as striker Ben Hinchliffe will be making his 100th appearance for the club if selected. He’s only one away from 50 goals for Barton, also.
Barton don’t have the best record against the Ammers, having not defeated them since 2018 in a thrilling 4-3 win at the Easy Buy Stadium.
It’s been three defeats since then. The last time the Swans were at the Southerns Stadium was a 3-0 defeat in January 2019, which was marred by a severe leg injury to Barton player Danny Chambers.
The Swans will be hoping for better fortunes this time around.