AFC Liverpool v Charnock Richard, 11th September 2021

By the time I finished on the turnstile and headed to join Dave the Rattler in the stand,  it was already 1-1. Dan Cockerline had put us 1-0 up. But Jordan Darr equalised inside the first 10 minutes.  The equaliser was apparently soft. Within a few minutes of me joining Dave, Jesse Dowling had headed us back in front after a cross from the left found Dowling at the far post. The first half was otherwise a non-event really as very little was created by both sides thereafter.

On re-entering the stand following the half time break,  Neil the kitman informed Dave and I that "the Cock" had to be substituted as a precaution. Within 3 minutes of the restart his replacement Billy McCarthy aka "Billy Whiz" had made it 3-1 after an initial Jay McGrane shot had been blocked.Charnock Centre-Half Luke Gibson got it back to 3-2 on 56 minutes, having a simple tap-in after one of his teammates won a header in the area. I  certainly felt it was a 50/50 game prior to kick off. Indeed for a while Charnock were in the ascendancy and we had a couple of notable let offs.On the 70th minute, Paul Speed found himself through but not the best angle. He found the narrowest gap to beat the keeper and get the ball in off the near post. A few minutes earlier Ando had taken Kyle Schorah off and replaced him with returning centre-half Luke Stephens in an attempt to shore up our leaky defence.Prior to being taken off, it was very annoying in the first place for Kyle to be on the receiving end of a very bad tackle that put him on the ground. It was also very annoying the tackle did not get a card, considering the referee had booked a couple of our players for lesser things. At least the referee had his comeuppance when he collided with a player and was on the floor for five minutes!The shoring up of the defence did nothing to stop Charnock score again on 83 minutes. I had mentioned to a few fellow supporters a couple of minutes earlier that we really needed another goal to put the match to bed. Deep into injury time and Charnock hit our bar! The ball went up the other end and Jesse Dowling was played through to slot the ball past the Charnock keeper for his second, and that really was that!As our players were being applauded off, attention was being turned to who our opponents would be in the next round of the Vase. New Mills versus Armthorpe Welfare had gone to a penalty shoot out. I ended up providing Alan Harrison with updates which he relayed over the microphone in his usual entertaining manner. Armthorpe were a penalty away from victory after New Mills had missed one of their five. Armthorpe missed their fifth penalty, taking the shootout into sudden death, and it was New Mills who eventually won through. So we had a shorter trip to Derbyshire's High Peak in a fortnight's time.

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