Eccleshall 3-0 Cheadle Town

Out of the two teams it was Eccleshall who broke their bad run-of-form as they eventually ran out comfortable-looking 3-0 winners at Pershall Park.

Talk about a game slowly crumbling from underneath Cheadle's feet. We started off brightly enough, stringing together some free-flowing passes and looking as though we would make a decent game of this but ended the match three goals and one player worse off following Andy Lindon's dismissal on the hour mark.

Despite our possession the first decent chance of the match fell to Eccleshall on 8 minutes as a close-range shot clipped the crossbar, followed ten minutes later by O'Keefe making a great stop following a one-on-one.

There was a flurry of three successive chances as the game entered the half-hour mark. First of all Eccleshall screwed a shot wide following a suspected foul on Neil Logan with Aaron Riley then going straight up the other end and having a one-on-one blocked by the 'keeper's legs...swiftly followed by a header flashing just wide of the post from a Sam Willans cross.

0-0 at half-time would have suited us but it sadly wasn't to be as Eccleshall took the lead moments before the referee put the whistle to his mouth. We didn't clear our lines effectively and the ball was threaded through to the right where their no.7, Lascana Sidibe, was on hand to side-foot past O'Keefe.

Eccleshall continued their hunt for goals at the start of the second half. Sidibe - that man again - had a curling effort headed off the line by Scott Clarke on 50 minutes with the hunt proving fruitful just two minutes later as they got their second; a corner from the right was easily nodded home at the far post.

With the game slipping away an already bad situation was made worse with Lindon's dismissal with the whole thing tin-lidded by Eccleshall's third on 67 minutes; Sidibe getting his second of the match after latching onto a left-wing cross with a first-time finish.

And that was pretty much that. Eccleshall could have made the scoreline worse for us but thankfully they were too indecisive and/or came up against some stoic defending from Neil Logan and Ben Roberts. 

We haven't made the best of starts to 'March Madness', have we? And look at our next two matches: AFC Liverpool and Barnoldswick Town. Both away. 

Nurse. My tablets, please.....

TEAM: O'Keefe, Clarke, B Roberts, Logan, A Roberts, Hussain, Riley, McCormack, Lindon, Hall (B Brokenbrow), Willans. Sub: B Brokenbrow.