Pre-Season Finale: Cheadle Town 0-2 West Auckland Town...and a Lot More Than That

1 Aug

New kit, new facilities, a new era. Our pre-season finale at Park Road was all about heralding those three things.

Bar a squally opening 10-15 minutes of the match itself the weather held off and the hundreds that turned up to support their local club enjoyed all of the activities on offer, made good use of the new catering facilities and also enjoyed 90 minutes of entertaining football.

The new facilities have been made possible thanks to the Buildbase bursary that we won back in May.

Our new Town Cafe - situated between the clubhouse and the Main Stand - opened for business, complete with a new menu on offer and al fresco seating.

A wider range of hot food, snacks and drinks are now available at Park Road

For those who prefer to be indoors, our clubhouse has also been refurbished; new furniture and carpet with a wide range of cold drinks and snacks on offer.

The players have also benefited from the makeover. They were greeted with a new-look changing room incorporating new showers.

We also launched our new kit before the match. The players coming out to the pitch in the new red-and-white striped home strip.

All shiny and brand new colours for the club

As for the match itself we came up against a very strong and talented West Auckland Town side who ran out 2-0 winners on the day.

It didn't really get going until the approach of the half-hour mark. Auckland had a shot cleared off the line before an excellent save by Danny Whiting sadly went unrewarded and the loose ball was headed back into the net.

Our first decent chance came early in the second half as Rick Whyatt twisted and turned in the box only to have his shot saved before West Auckland had another handful of decent chances, forcing Ryan Allcock into a decent stop and then smashing a header onto the crossbar.

Ben Christopher's two teasing crosses went unattended before the match ended with a bit of a mixup in our defence, allowing a free shot on goal from the edge of the box to give our visitors an unreachable 2-0 lead.

Many thanks to West Auckland FC for making the trip down from the North East for our pre-season finale. Thanks also to the hundreds that turned up to take it all in and Matchday Supplies for providing us with goodie bags for the squad.

There's lots more pictures of the day in the gallery below....