Cheshire League

Division 1

Thursday 12th May 2022

Kick Off 18.45 Actual 18.55

Parklands 6 Malpas 2, attendance 58

54’ 1-0

58’ 1-1

59’ 2-1

61’ 3-1

70’ 4-1

76’ 5-1

86’ 6-1

88’ 6-2

@ Parklands Sports Club

Parklands

Cronton

WA8 4NQ

No Admission

£1 Programme, 4 pages.

I wasn’t sure that this game would definitely take place. It was 8th versus 12th in the league table, with nothing on the game for Parklands and they have already forfeited their final home game next Saturday, whilst Malpas hadn’t played since 23rd April and had already failed to turn up for this fixture when it was scheduled to be played earlier in the season. Although they are fourth bottom, the two teams immediately below them can both still get enough points to leapfrog them, so they are certainly not safe yet.

Malpas to Cronton, just north of Widnes, takes almost an hour to drive at the best of times, let alone during rush hour, so it was little surprise that the away team struggled to get here, with the last car load arriving right on the scheduled kick off time, hence the game getting underway ten minutes late. It didn’t seem to affect them though, as they matched the hosts from the off and looked a far better side than their league position suggested. Plenty of chances at both ends, with Parklands going closest to making the breakthrough, hitting the crossbar ten minutes before halftime, but it remained 0-0 at the break.

Parklands finally broke the deadlock nine minutes into the second half, when a defender put the ball past his own ’keeper when trying to cut out a cross. Three minutes later Malpas saw a shot hit the post, but levelled it up at 1-1 a minute later, firing in off the inside of the post. Parklands then scored twice in the next three minutes, to go 3-1 up and it was game over. They added three more, with the free kick that made it 5-1 being the pick of the bunch, before Malpas pulled one back to make it 6-2 with a couple of minutes left.

The journey up and back wasn’t great, with the SatNav taking us up the M1 (to avoid a vehicle fire on the M40) and across the A50 to Stoke, before finally joining the M6 at Junction 16. Coming back was a little better, although the M40 was shut between Junction 12 and 11 and the M25 closed from Junction 10 to 9, which meant by the time I arrived home, I had been driving for 9 hours 59 minutes!