2025 PREVIEWS: Cheshire Lines ready for another big push, says skipper Helsby
Cheshire Lines skipper Luke Helsby is hoping for more of the same this year from his Southport & District league promotion contenders.
The Allerton side’s fourth place finish in last season’s Premier Division was their lowest since 2019, an impressive record which includes one title, in 2021.
And given the three sides who finished above them have all left the arena, no wonder he feels his side can be competitive again.
Champions Prescot & Odyssey have been promoted to the Love Lane Liverpool Competition, runners-up Irby have returned to the Cheshire Cricket League and third-placed Burscough have left for the Preston-area Palace Shield.
Helsby said: “It’s going to be a pretty open league this year.
“I’d like to think it’ll be another strong campaign.
“There’s a few other sides who have been around mid-table and might be looking to have a push themselves this year.”
With the Premier Division down to 10 sides, the first few weeks of the season will be taken up by cup cricket, giving the sides the chance to feel each other out.
Not that Lines need it, according to their skipper.
He added: “The 10 teams who are left, we know each other inside and out with the exception of Alder.
“So I don’t think there’ll be any surprises in that sense.
“We’ve got a couple of lads who didn’t play last year, a few ins and outs, nothing major – it’ll be the same core group of lads who have been playing for the last four or five years.”
Lines were ineligible for promotion in 2021, and soon the Southport league will be merged with the Comp anyway.
Stepping up a level would still mean switching limited overs cricket for timed, and amateur cricket for open – Helsby is not sure of the impact promotion would have, if his side were to pull it off.
“If it happens, it will be a big change and we’d have to invest in the squad,” he said.
“I’ve gone to certain players and tried to get them interested and the first question is always ‘do I have to pay subs, or can I get paid’… that’s not what we’re about.
“So we’ll just have to see how it comes if it happens.”
