Cheadle Town 3-1 Holker Old Boys (aet)

It took two goals in extra-time of a mostly dreadful match for Cheadle to see off Holker Old Boys and - eventually - make their way into the quarter-finals of the Division Two Trophy.

Things looked promising as Cheadle dominated the opening passages of play, with Scott Clarke forcing the Holker 'keeper into an early stop and Andy Lindon striking just over the bar after 13 minutes. When Deano just clipped his shot wide after being put through on 17 minutes you got the feeling that a Cheadle goal was surely to come soon.

Then it went awfully stale. This was only punctuated by Carl Buchanan slashing wildly at a right-wing cross just before half-time, which quite rightly saw both teams going in goalless.

The utter boredom was broken in style after 62 minutes when Cheadle took the lead. Carl Buchanan was put through and, after having his initial shot blocked and falling to the floor, got back up off his feet to slide home into an empty net. With his protests that Carl handled the ball before netting, Holker's irksome, motormouth 'keeper added to the yellow card he received some five minutes earlier with a straight red, leaving his teammates to face the remainder of the match a man short.

Cheadle laid siege to the net but couldn't get a shot on target. When they finally did manage to get their aim right in the last ten minutes of the match, they found Holker's stand-in 'keeper every bit equal to their efforts. On the 80 minute mark, Deano saw his first-time shot from an Arron Riley cross superbly beaten away and was thwarted again with just three minutes to go.

Just as we all thought we could go home and thaw our toes, Holker made sure that we would have to endure 30 more minutes of this tie. With just two minutes of the match remaining, a cross in from the right was headed home with Mellor stranded. Extra-time...deep joy.

In fact we needn't have worried as Cheadle dominated extra-time and finally put this tie out of Holker's reach. On the brink of the end of the first-half of extra-time, Mac's surging run and through ball was poked home by Deano. Two minutes after the re-start substitute Scott 'The Wasp' Flanagan was on the end of a right-wing cross to lash home easily from six yards out.
In the remaining time Cheadle contrived to hit the woodwork twice - Mike Myers' shot cannoning off the crossbar was the last kick of the game - thus lending a seemingly very simple end to what seemed like a very long day.

They could have won this at a canter. Not that our still-frozen toes would know....

Photos from the day can be seen by clicking here

TEAM: Mellor, Clarke, B Roberts, Fallows, A Roberts, Brocklehurst, Riley (Flanagan), MacDonald, Buchanan (Myers), Martin (Brokenbrow), Lindon. Subs: Flanagan, Myers, Brokenbrow, Cotterill