BRADFORD Park Avenue boss Mark Bower was left disappointed by last Saturday's postponement and revealed that his bold prediction for this weekend could leave him red-faced.

Avenue had been due to travel to Stalybridge Celtic last week but the tail end of Storm Doris wafted across Tameside. It was the Bradford club's first postponement of the season – and not even at Horsfall Stadium, a ground that traditionally gets hit hard every winter.

Bower said: "With today's game (against Gloucester City) coming up, I wrote my programme notes about us not having had a game off at home this winter and I got a fair bit of stick about that.

"Everyone at the club took the mickey and scoffed that I'd spoken too soon, so I just hope that I haven't put a jinx on it.

"But it has been a drier winter than in recent years and even when we have had had rain, sleet or snow, our ground staff have worked really hard.

"Most of them are club officials and volunteers but they're so dedicated. They don't just work hard, they do a brilliant job as well."

Bower had been hoping to see new loan signing Jake Hibbs making his debut for Avenue last week and wanted his side to continue their momentum after three straight National North victories had lifted them out of the relegation places.

The Horsfall manager said: "Because we were carrying a few injuries last week, Jake would have definitely started the game. It's just typical that you get a player in on loan who has been short of game time and then the game's called off.

"But he's a very good player who will improve our squad and add quality and we've got him for a month, although he can't play against his parent club and we have FC Halifax Town in that period.

"If things work out, we might have him a bit longer – we'll have to see on that one. I think he's a good fit for our club because of the way we like to play our football and he's got a ready-made partnership with Nicky Wroe.

"They played quite a few games together for Halifax, so we'll see if we can get them both out on the pitch at the same time.

"Nicky is one of a few that we have struggling with injury. He definitely couldn't have played last weekend but he may be in contention today.

"We would have been all right last Saturday – we would have had a strong squad even though we had a couple of players missing.

"It wouldn't have been like the West Riding County Cup semi-final the previous Monday, when we had no bench because we had so many ineligible players."