AFC Liverpool from Yesteryear

Home Match: 9th November 2021. Away Match: 4th April 2022. The home game in November  was a night that we hoped could have seen us break our attendance record of 604 against Wigan Robin Park.  As it was, we had to make do with 413. When Steve Fraser and I left the turnstile to arrive in the stand, Macc got a penalty. It was such a soft one to concede as Steve said, and duly despatched. Macclesfield looked quicker to the ball. As a side that had been assembled on a budget most North West counties league teams could only dream of, the fear was there that it was going to be a long hard night. In the turnstile, Steve feared Macc would be out of sight by half time. Although Macclesfield did have one or two half chances, there weren't that many clear cut chances. With a couple of minutes of the first half to go I commented to Steve that it would be set pieces that would probably give us our best chance. No sooner had I spoke, Jesse Dowling was clean through and beat ex-FC United of ...

After 13 years of following AFC Liverpool from the beginning,  I hadn't managed to make the trip to Padiham. That was until this season, when I managed to make 2 trips in the space of 4 weeks! The previous occasion saw the Non-league Reds overturn a 2-0 half time deficit to win 3-2 in the FA Cup extra preliminary round. The league meeting 4 weeks on saw a few notable changes in personnel for both sides. We had Callum Schorah on the bench after returning from injury. We had a new goalkeeper who apparently hailed from nearby Blackburn and a new Australian centre-half (Thomas Scott & Alex Crocker). Steve Fraser was trying to come up with some new musical chant based on some musician called Tommy Scott! For their part, Padiham had  signed a new number 9 (Joel Brownhill). They also had a different keeper in than our last encounter, who liked to keep a tub of vaseline in his net! Like the FA Cup tie it was an even first half. But this time we weren't 2-0 down at half time. They ...

Amazingly in 13 years of AFC Liverpool I had never quite been able to make it to an away game at Padiham before. A few years previous I did make the drive to a midweek game, only to arrive at the ground to be told it was off due to an accident on the M6 which had affected our team arriving that night. The same night Runcorn Town's match was called off at Barnoldswick. This time around my attendance (and that of Peter Garrity) was put into a little bit of doubt by dodgy instructions I was taking from google maps. My sat nav had failed a few weeks earlier, and I hadn't got round to replacing it. After getting lost in Haslingden, and Peter asking for rough directions in a shop, low and behold I discovered that google maps on my phone had an in-built sat nav that could give me directions as I drive! That was bloody amazing! Peter and I got to the ground with about 10 minutes to spare, and it was the home side who took the lead on 18 minutes. Padiham could have gone further ahead a ...