BACUP Borough are set to raid Chorley again, in a bid to sign Billy McCartney.

If he joins he will be the third player to make the move from Victory Park to West View in recent weeks, following in the footsteps of Lee Wilkinson and Darren Emmett.

Bacup boss Brent Peters has put the required seven days notice in for McCartney, but he won't be available for their NWCL Division One home game with Ramsbottom United on Boxing Day.

However, Peters could still be choosing from a fully fit squad as Rhodri Giggs and Darren Quick attempt to recover from illness while Sean Cryer, Scott Gilchrist and Lee Kershaw could return after injury, while he was also re-signed Darren Esdaille to further bolster his defence.

However, one casualty on Friday could be the pitch, which was left in a ragged state following Bacup's 4-1 home defeat to Congleton Town on Saturday.

Peters said: "We shouldn't have played on Saturday. I knew at 11.30am, because although it wasn't standing water you could feel it underneath.

"The pitch is in good nick but there will have to be a serious thaw for the game to be on on Boxing Day.

"But we want to play it and it will be a good game. There's nothing to choose between the teams in the league and they have similar form to us."

The last thing Ramsbottom boss Vince Overson wants is another postponement, as his Christmas programme has already been disrupted.

His team's attempts to bounce back from their FA Vase exit at Gedling were thwarted by the rain on Saturday when the home derby with Clitheroe was called off, a decision which angered the manager.

Overson said: "The pitch was perfect apart from a little bit of water in the 18-yard box but the referee thought it was a danger to the players.

"That's ridiculous because over the region there would have been pitches 10 times worse than ours.

"We were looking forward to a good performance against Clitheroe to get the previous week out of our system, but it didn't happen."