Under 12's. Away v Ashton United

  Result - Reddish North End 4 Ashton United 1

“I motored lonely as a cloud, near Ashton-under-Lyne

When all at once I took a left, and my hub caps were covered in grime”

I thought I would mimic Wordsworth’s famous poem as a host of golden daffodils unexpectedly greeted me on arrival at Ashton’s pitch. Although scenic, it was also a bit disturbing because it was 10.00am and the daffs were all there was at the ground, not a soul in sight! However, this being Ashton, I shouldn’t have been surprised, and although almost the entire Reddish team were assembled and warmed up before the Ashton entourage had arrived and got things ready, we were nonetheless by some miracle able to start just five minutes late.

The permafrost seemed to have receded a bit since our last trip, so the pitch was firm and dry although we had a stiff breeze sweeping across the Ashton steppes to contend with. Reddish chose to kick with the wind behind us first half and proceeded to dominate the entire 30 minutes. We passed the ball around well, forced at least 10 corners, scored four times, fluffed a couple of gilt-edged chances, and rasped any number of efforts just wide or high. Sam even saw a header go through the net! However the ref had just blown for half-time so the boys came off 4-0 up and very well pleased.

The match was all over casanova at this point and we had all but achieved our main objective – to record the win which would make us virtually impossible to catch for second place in the league. The game restarted and although Reddish still held the upper hand the boys somehow didn’t quite reach the fluency of the first half. We created a good number of chances but were either just off target, mind the windows (i.e. well off target), or thwarted by the Ashton keeper who had a really good match. As the misses mounted the boys seemed to get a bit frustrated as Ashton used their offside trap effectively and then managed to spend some time in our half. Assisted by the wind they threatened once or twice before some comedy defending by us gifted them a late consolation.

As for the goals, I was told it was Michael who opened the scoring (it was an odd goal because the ball seemed to gently bobble 10 yards through a ruck of players before slowly rolling into the net). Anyway, it counted, and shortly after this Callum B finished from close range before two expert little strikes from Jamie Clarkeldinho gave us our unassailable advantage.

So some mixed emotions to be honest – aspects of our second half performance were disappointing but that is perhaps only because the first half was so good. Here the boys had worked as a team, kept their shape, passed the ball, scored goals and crucially demonstrated a great team spirit, encouraging each other. That is something I love to see. And in the end we got the win we wanted, which was important today, setting us up for a great presentation evening, of which more later!

As I said this win (number 13 of the season) means that with two games left we need three points to be belt and braces for the runners-up spot. However, the only team that can catch us would need to win all their remaining four games (one of which is against champions Clayton Villa, so good luck with that) and see us lose both ours to overtake us, and I sense that the boys just won’t let that happen.

Big thanks to Rob for stepping in to ref the game really well when the appointed official cried off.

Next week we travel over to another part of Ashton(!) but this time to the super surroundings of Brendon Bees.

Scorers : Jamie (2) Michael (1) Callum B (1)

Man of the match : Jamie