AFC Liverpool from Yesteryear

This was my first visit to the Litherland Sports Centre for a league game.  I had made I think two previous visits for Cup games. The Qatar World Cup was in swing. We were 4th. REMY were a place outside the bottom two. It was a first half where not a lot happened on the pitch.  We had one or two chances of note. Elliot Hughes fired over from one promising central position. Chances were very few at both ends. They had one corner which came back off our near post. Off the field, new chants were being developed courtesy of Mr Fraser. Due to the colour of his top, the Jack McGovern chant became "Jack McGovern's our Tango". Whilst debutant Joe Mswalie was gaining the tag of "Squeaky Mswalie". Into the second half and one AFC move saw their last man catch one of our lads. I must admit I was baying for blood. Then Steve Fraser pointed out that the last man was a certain Liam Loughlin who used to play for us. He was playing very deep today as opposed to midfield. Anyway...

A few weeks earlier, a pink goalkeeping jersey worn by Chadderton's Goalkeeper led to some good natured pink panther chanting. This night our opponents West Didsbury and Chorlton, who didn't need to change their away strip, turned up with pink stripes in their away strip! With a Goalkeeper who apparently hailed from Liverpool in a Tango top, we had a jolly good laugh. On the field despite starting brightly, a 24th minute Ezeikel Eme shot was spilled into the net by Reds' keeper David Parkinson to give West the lead. Steve Fraser was not impressed that West's young keeper appeared to have been laughing at our senior keeper's error.  We weren't behind for too long as Tom Croughan pulled the trigger in dramatic fashion just 4 minutes later in the inside right channel, and we were level. Soon we could have gone in front as a diving Tanaka "Alex" Cherera header went over. But it wasn't long before we did take the lead as Brad Shearwood running into the ...

A failure to beat Burscough would have meant ten games without a win. The latest instalment of that poor run was a 6-3 defeat at home to South Liverpool in the Liverpool Senior Cup the previous midweek.  After managing to get to the ground about 10 mins before kick off, I decided to order myself a burger. My first choice was a bacon and egg roll. But they had no more eggs! As I was waiting for my burger, Tommy Douglas was played in on the right to fire us 1-0 up. A couple of Burscough supporters lamented a familiar defensive frailty. A few minutes later I joined our ultra supporters behind the goal, to witness what I certainly felt at the time to be some ridiculous refereeing. Tom Croughan was played through, and seemed to take it past the Keeper only to be clattered by the keeper and a certain foul and possible red card for the keeper. Wrong! Despite Tom being in possession and the keeper failing to make contact with the player, the referee judged it to be a foul by Tom. Not sure ...