Prescot Cables 6
Nantwich Town 0
League (NW Counties League Div 1)

Match Report

Nantwich Town came unstuck on a wet and windy Merseyside night, going down heavily to league leaders Prescot Cables. The home side, seven points clear at the top, carved open the Dabbers defence at will to inflict the hefty defeat. The wet conditions did nothing to help the Nantwich central defence but they were consistently vulnerable to a through ball down the centre which, once past them, they were unable to turn and retrieve so leaving a Cables forward with a clean one-on-one with the keeper.
Cables repeated the ploy more times than the BBC have Dads Army and with Nantwich’s Captain Mainwaring having gone AWOL, there was no one to bark instructions to re-organise the platoon. It wasn’t just Nigel Gleghorn’s organisational skills that were missed, though, the Dabbers looked a poorer outfit without his footballing ability.
Take One came on 18 minutes when Mike Todd was through and rounded Stuart Heeps. The Nantwich keeper was injured in the process and, although, he struggled on through the first half, Martin Packham donned the keeper’s jersey for the second 45.
Take Two was on 42 minutes, Steve Torpey benefiting from the defensive mix-up and, on the stroke of half-time Mike O’Donnell fired Cables into a 3-0 lead.
Take Four came 8 minutes after the interval, Kevin Garforth this time running on to slide the ball past the helpless Packham. At least the fifth goal was a bit different. Gareth Brookes carelessly gave the ball away in a dangerous place and John Benson crossed for man-of-the-match Karl Baker to volley home with the stand-in keeper in no man’s land.
Nothing was going right for the Dabbers and the sixth goal, just after the hour mark, was something of a fluke – a cross from the inspirational Eddie Taylor’s catching the leg of Todd and deflecting past Packham.
On the plus side, the Dabbers kept battling away against a slick Prescot outfit and didn’t concede again in the final half hour. For their part, Nantwich’s best efforts came in the opening quarter hour when they were able to match their hosts – Melford Knight and Brookes both going close.
A dismal result on a soaking night but “Don’t panic Captain Mainwaring”, the Dabbers won’t come up against very many sides of this quality.
Prescot Dahl, Baker, Williamson (O’Callaghan,60), Clarke, Flood, O’Donnell, Garforth, Taylor, Torpey, Todd (Holmes,73), Benson (Pye,73)
Nantwich Heeps (McVey,h-t), Travis (Hough,53), Gardiner, Packham, Maguire, Vickers, Brookes, Knight, Dawson, Wilkinson, Hampshire (Buckle,72)
Star Man Adam Vickers Inventive and hard working in the middle of the park

Match report written by Michael Chatwin