Central Midlands Alliance League
Premier Division South
Saturday 18th November 2023
Kick Off 14.00 Actual 14.01
Melbourne Dynamo 1 Cromford & Wirksworth Town 0, attendance 55
50’ 1-0
@ Melbourne Sports Park
Cockshut Lane
Melbourne
DE73 8DG
No Admission
£2 Programme, 20 pages.
I had been offered a lift to this game, so asked the club late last night, via Twitter, as to the likelihood of the game going ahead okay, mindful of the dreadful Met Office weather forecast for the area overnight and during the hours leading up to kick off. I had already received a reply when I got up this morning and it was good news. Game on! A trouble free journey north saw us arrive about ninety minutes before kick off. The playing surface looked excellent, although the walk across from the changing rooms to the pitch was very soft underfoot. Melbourne Sports Park is home to the local rugby (also at home today), cricket and tennis clubs, as well as the football. The rugby pitch runs lengthways away from the two storey clubhouse/changing room building, with a football pitch running parallel, at a slight angle to the left, then the main football pitch further to the left, at right angles to the other two. It is enclosed with a white plastic rail, with a pair of dugouts on the far touchline, sandwiching an electronic scoreboard, although it was not in use.
The match was 6th versus 12th in the league table and although it was fiercely contested throughout, never really produced much in the way of goalmouth action. In fact, we were probably lucky to actually see a goal at all. The visitors did have one effort disallowed for offside half an hour in, but there were very few other real chances of note in the remainder of the half. Melbourne broke the deadlock five minutes into the second half, breaking down the right before playing a ball across the box which was finished from 10 yards out.
As it turned out, the forecast heavy rain obviously never fell and apart from a brief period of drizzle, it remained dry throughout. This completed the Premier Division South for me today and just leaves St. Josephs Rockware Worksop to finish off Premier Division North.
