Ellesmere Rangers 0-1 Cheadle Town

The North West Counties Football League is enjoying something of a goalfest at the moment.

Goals galore. Goals, goals, and more goals. Goaly McGoalface. It’s certainly the league to watch at the moment if you want your money’s worth. A 4-2 here, a 5-0 there and even an 11-3 over the weekend.

Goals!

Trouble is if you’re at the wrong end of such, for the want of a better word, tonkings your enthusiasm for such excess is blunted. That has certainly been the case at our end of late. We have been at the wrong end of a 5-1 here, a 6-0 there and even a 7-0.

If ever we needed to be just a little bit antisocial and refuse to join in with the goal glut with “just a 1-0 win” then it was away at Ellesmere Rangers….

…and that very result was duly delivered thanks to Ruben Abreu’s effort on the 55th minute after he cut inside from the left and drilled home at the near post.

“Come here and give me a hug”. Chris Sherrington is the first to congratulate Ruben after we went 1-0 up.

It was deserved reward as we had the lion’s share of chances and whathaveyou up to that point.

A very bright start saw the returning Mssrs Collinson and Sherrington force the keeper into two nervous clearances within the first five minutes.

They both had chances again shortly afterwards. Collinson swinging an effort inches wide and Sherrington seeing one of his crosses almost turned into his own net by an Ellesmere defender.

Tyler Devlin had an exemplary game in the back line and could have got himself on the scoresheet twice in the first half, leathering a volley into the side-netting from close range and then getting his head to a corner that was gathered by the keeper.

Tyler Devlin receiving his (deserved) gratitude from Chris Woods after the match

In between Tyler’s two efforts Ruben Abreu went close with a free-kick and a lovely dinked pass by Sherrington through to Collinson saw the latter narrowly plant a shot wide of the post.

Ellesmere were much-improved in the second half and fired their first shot across our bows on the 54th minute when Dane Smith produced a spectacular one-handed save to beat away a shot that was arrowing towards the top corner.

The next passage of play was when Ruben gave us the lead. Fine lines and all that.

One of Chris Sherrington’s teasing crosses from the left almost found a Cheadle boot on the hour mark and that was pretty much that in terms of chances for us.

Substitute Callum Knight receives his instructions

We went through a bit of a nervous patch in the last ten minutes as Ellesmere pressed for the equaliser. Dane Smith had to come out sharply to snuff out danger on 85 minutes as Ellesmere were clean through and he produced another smart stop in stoppage time, getting down low to smother.

A much-needed win. Ellesmere Rangers are, as yet, winless in the league; given our past history for being a registered charity when it came to assisting teams with their first wins of the season the win feels that little more satisfying.

Hopefully we can press on with another win versus Stone Dominoes this coming Saturday.