Longridge Town v AFC Liverpool, 12th March 2022

After doing a spot of political campaigning in Warrington Town Centre I thought I was heading to Longridge in plenty of time for kick off. When my phone Sat Nav took me near Longridge Cricket Club, I thought I had to be near the football club. They are often next to each other in small quaint English places. But suddenly I was heading down narrow country lanes and heading away from the Town. I eventually navigated back and got there in time. I even later saw the Cricket Club to the side of the end we were attacking in the second half!

In the first fifteen minutes both sides forced saves from the goalkeepers. Then on seventeen minutes was a moment of magic from debutant Jordan Monthe. After a through ball from Kyle Schorah, Jordan ran at a couple of defenders from the right, came inside before curling a shot in with his left foot to give us the lead.Meanwhile the Longridge youngsters on the drum were intrigued by my rattle! On the pitch, our main challenges were caused by the departures of Kyle Schorah (who was only recently back) and Adam Garner due to injury. Adam's replacement at left back was ironically a Robertson, although his first name was Aaron not Andrew of LFC.Kyle's replacement number 14 Callum Longworth did in fact look useful. He had one run at their defence and just as we were all screaming for him to pass, he made space and got a useful shot in, which was blocked I think.Into the second half and the home side had a sniff of goal very early in the second half, but was thwarted by Keeper Jack McGovern. Just before the hour mark Callum Schorah just did not give up on a through ball, beat Paul Cooper in the Longridge goal and slotted it home. A third followed on 68 minutes after Jordan Monthe intercepted a ball. He played it to Callum Schorah who in turn played in Kyle Sambor to slot home.It was not long after the third goal that I realised that Longridge FC was indeed next to the Cricket Club! I spent a lot of the second half chatting with Jake. He recounted the tale of his first AFC game against Steeton where we won 8-0 in 2019. He and his partner Jasmine booked a place on the coach for the Cleator Moor trip a few days later. They got on the coach, enjoyed the karaoke on their way home and the rest was history.Lee McConchie was on this day playing right back, and he found himself suddenly through on goal in the last ten minutes. Paul Cooper managed to thwart him though.Before the game was out, we managed to survive our woodwork being struck twice. The second of those efforts was from a free kick after Aaron Robertson took a player out on the edge of the area.We had a few players booked including another substitute, Johnny Bravo who had been performing well for the Under 18s. This was Bravo's second substitute appearance and he was also booked in his other appearance against Northwich Victoria a few weeks earlier. In that previous game (his debut) he did get a sniff of goal. The problem was the chance just came to him too quickly. There was no chance that came his way against Longridge. But I felt it was surely only a matter of time. As it was, Johnny drifted from the club for a while before returning to the Under 18s fold in 2023/24.

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