Cheadle Town 0-2 Runcorn Linnets

"I should be at this match by 4.00pm" I said. Optimistic.

Thanks to the traffic in the notorious bottlenecks of Longsight and Parrs Wood (whoever sequenced the traffic lights there wants shooting), I got to Park Road with only 20 minutes remaining of this match.

By this time Runcorn were already a goal to the good thanks to a Thompson goal and both teams were down to ten men; Heathy the one seeing the red card for Cheadle. That's two sendings-off in the past two games, which will mean an eight-game ban or something like that.

My match reports at the time were supplied by regular-reader 'New Linnet' from the Runcorn website and Paul, one of Arron Riley's entourage. According to Paul, Cheadle had a "handful of decent chances", with New Linnet saying that "I hadn't missed much" and that both players had pretty much deserved to be sent off. During my brief chat with 'Linnet, Runcorn had a ligitimate penalty shout turned down and shortly after that as I made my way around to the exit, Runcorn's Boden had all the time in the world to blast the clinching second goal past Mellor after 88 minutes.

Walking into a football match that's already well on its way is strange, rather like gatecrashing a party. It just felt...wrong, like I needn't have bothered, for some reason. I did have my camera with me, but couldn't be arsed taking any photographs, so apologies if you're expecting the results of my usual efforts. So, if you're thinking of doing the "two games in a day" thing, just make sure you can make the kick-off time for both matches!

Don't say I never give you any advice.

A match report from the Runcorn Linnets website can be read if you click here.

If New Linnet is reading this, it was nice to have an albeit brief chat with you. Best of luck for the season.