Cheadle Town 1-2 Chadderton

Ben Brooks receives a framed picture of himself after he had scored Cheadle Town's 1500th league goal in the North West Counties Football League against Abbey Hey the other week; team manager Steve Brokenbrow does the honours

Cheadle Town's recent upturn in form took a knock as they tumbled to this disappointing 1-2 reversal at home to Chadderton.

And after such a promising start to the match, too. We created three gilt-edged chances in the first half - scoring with one - but then faded away, resulting in a somewhat torpid second-half performance where the visitors were arguably the better outfit. Unfortunately there was no biblical downpour or poorly-sighted linesman to rescue us this time around.

A lively opening ten minutes was capped by us taking the lead. Chadderton were robbed of possession on the right, the ball was floated over and collected by Josh Taylor six yards out; despite having his back to goal he still managed a neat, economical turn-and-shot.

Two minutes later and we should have extended the lead. David Ratcliffe clipped an inch-perfect ball for Arron Dellosa to latch onto but his lob bounced centimetres wide of the post.

The course of the game then changed dramatically in the remaining eleven minutes of the half.

With 32 minutes gone, Chadderton's Danny Shaw was given time to collect the ball on the edge of the area and shift it onto his (obviously) favoured right foot before toe-bunging it into the roof of the net with Paul Socha bursting through on the left six minutes later before burying into the corner from a tightish angle.

With time ticking away at the end of the first half we were given the chance to start afresh for the second half as we were given a penalty following a shove in the back; normally deadly from the spot, Ben Brooks chose today to roll his shot wide of the post. 

Perhaps our haeds were still a little low after that as Chadderton had a volley of chances to wrap the game up around the hour mark. On 59 minutes they ballooned it over the crossbar following a scrable in the box, saw a counter-attack end up with the foot of the post being struck two minutes later with a teasing cross being fluffed right in front of goal shortly after that.

But, at 1-2, you're still very much in the match and - as I have said so may times before - you always get that one more chance....

...which came with a minute to go. We hadn't troubled him that much in the second half so credit to the Chadderton keeper for keeping altert enough to make an excellent save, tipping one of Andy Lindon's fierce drives over the crossbar.

So this is what you get for thrippling them 8-2 in the FA Cup? Knocked out of the First Division Trophy and now a league defeat. There's still one more joust to come when we travel to Andrew Street in April....

TEAM: Cavanagh, Hall (Riley), Clarke, Ratcliffe, Gaskin, Walley, Dellosa (Lindon), Taylor, Brooks, German, B Brokenbrow (Eme). Subs: Eme, Riley, Lindon, Street.