Glossop North End 4-2 Cheadle Town

Two late goals from Glossop North End ensured that Cheadle Town suffered another pre-season defeat.

Cheadle opened the match with purpose and it paid dividends as early as the fifth minute. Carpenter latched onto a right-wing cross and lashed home from six yards. Thereafter Glossop seemed to get the better of the middle turf, which paid off for them when they equalised after about the 20 minute mark. A right-hand cross was headed back across Mellor's path for a Glossop player to side-foot home unattended.

Right on the stroke of half-time, Glossop were ahead. A lovely ball was fed through to their left winger who advanced on Mellor and tucked a shot neatly under his body. Half-time, 2-1 to Glossop.

The second half was a largely uneventful affair until the last fifteen minutes when three more goals were run in. Starting this miniature goal-fest was Cheadle's McDonagh who, after some confusion in the Glossop defence, found himself clean through on the 'keeper (see picture above). He didn't miss.

No sooner had my cheers for that goal died down than Glossop were back in front. A cross over from the left was found at the far post by an unguarded Glossop player who gleefully slotted home. With just five minutes of the game remaining, and with Cheadle's fitness waining, Glossop put the game out of reach with a neat close-range finish from a left-wing cross.

Without two of our first-team regulars (Heath and Lindon) this was a respectable performance against Div 1 opposition...and at last some pre-season goals for me to report on! The drafts in from the reserve squad put in hard-working, solid performances, especially Scott Clarke at right-back. I expect to see a bit more of him as the season progresses.

Pictures from the match can be seen by clicking here

TEAM: Mellor, Clarke, B Roberts, A Roberts, Cotterill, Brocklehurst, Riley, Hussain, McDonagh, Myers, Carpenter. SUBS: Gavin, Flanagan, Brooks, Smith, Logan

Tomorrow's Opponents: Glossop North End

I had a post all prepared bleating on about a "trip to the gateway to the Peak District tomorrow", but fixture faffage has struck again. Instead, Cheadle's pre-season programme will come to an end at Manchester City FC's training complex in Fallowfield, Manchester...with an 11.00am kick-off, so ignore that little "next match" banner above this post.

Nonetheless, onto our opponents. Did you know that Glossop is notable in footballing terms for being the smallest town in England to own a top-division professional football club? No, neither did I. Before you furrow your brow and start to wonder if you'd somehow missed GNE's foray into the modern-day Premiership, we're talking years and years ago here; 1898-1915 in fact, when GNE played in the Football League. Thesedays they ply their trade in Division One of the NWCFL - where they have been for the past fifteen seasons - finishing a respectable 9th last term.

Cheadle played GNE at Park Road during pre-season last year and came out handsome 3-0 winners with two goals from Vinnie Braine and one from Deano.

Come on Cheadle!

Match report and pictures will be posted late Saturday afternoon....

Pre-Season Friendly News

What's that I hear? Is it the faint rumblings of a pre-season friendly?

If blog regular Craig's tip-off is anything to go by, then yes it is. Internet forum mill has it that our very own Cheadle Town will be travelling to Derbyshire on Saturday 4th August to play Glossop North End.

We played GNE in last season's pre-season programme, notching up a comfortable 3-0 victory at Park Road. If I remember rightly, that fixture was supposed to be in Glossop but got switched back to Cheadle...something we're hoping doesn't happen this time because we like our days out!

Just 32 days, by the way, to the start of the new season........

(A Few) More Photos from the Glossop Match

All the photos are now in! Click here to go to the photoset.

Cheadle Town 3-0 Glossop North End

As you can see from the picture, the flag got its first airing today; it must have been a good luck charm as Cheadle Town ran out comfortable 3-0 victors over their Division One opponents. Vincent Braine was the man-of-the-match: on the hour mark he rounded the GNE 'keeper and squared for Dean Martin to tap-in and added two goals of his own in the last ten minutes. Well done, lads! Because the match kicked-off at 2.50pm we were able to take in the last ten minutes of the Reserves' match. Unfortunately we were just in time to watch GNE claim the only goal in that game....

Photos from the day can now be seen by clicking here. More will be added once Polardin gets his @rse into gear and e-mails me his pics!!

Three Balls On Our Pitch (Cheadle Town 3-0 Glossop North End)

Two men and their dog went to watch a Cheadle

August the 12th seems a hell of a long way away still, the papers are awash with so many ludicrous stories as the Premiership splits itself into 3 separate leagues: the Chelsea league, the Champions League Position league and the Relegation league.

How it amuses to see the press collude with the whole scene. The Premiership sells papers, sells Sky boxes, pays wages and the whole thing is a feeding frenzy of greed and over-blown nonsense. Man Utd, so desperate for money, squabble over transfer fees that are so bloated because of the Chelseas riches; Liverpool, left to pick up the scraps, ignore their tradition and sign footballers crude in manners and in potential; Arsenal give in to the inevitable and give Cole to Chelsea receiving a sum that will never enable them to compete.

The rest of the league is totally interchangeable; would anyone notice if Charlton and Newcastle did a full squad-change? Or Fulham and Middlesbrough? And so on and so on. Are they playing for safety or are they doomed to relegation?

Football is 11 men against 11 men and a leather ball. God bless it for that. And what a fantastic sport it is when played in the true spirit. As football eats itself and cycling implodes on a drugs binge, other sports at other levels flourish, because you can't destroy the need for sport. You can't buy it off or drug it into oblivion, but there will always be the grassroots.

Cheadle Town truly do not dive and there is the point in a nutshell. To dive is to cheat, to cheat is to turn your back on what sport is all about; the England team were caught in that folly during the World Cup talking of the winning being everything and performances not relevant, oh how wrong, how wrong they were.

As our pre-season friendly played itself out yesterday there was a moment of sublime skill. A player trapped the ball in motion on the touchline and with the instep flicked a pass into the momentum of a forward running player. A quick interchange of passes followed and a triangle of pure football class was drawn. Brilliant true art.

" When the ball hits the goal like a big pizza roll that's a Cheadle...."