Sunday 12 September 2010

Cheadle Town

The FA's refusal to allow artificial pitches to be used to stage FA Cup ties, sees this First Qualifying Round tie take place on a Sunday afternoon, with Woodley Sports hiring the Park Road ground of their neighbours Cheadle Town.


Sheffield are the visitors, and with the teams similarly placed in Divisions One North and South of the Northern Premier League respectively, a close contest seems likely.


A prominent feature of any visit to Cheadle is the number of planes flying over the ground on their final approach to the nearby Manchester Airport.


Sheffield skipper Brian Cusworth was to have an eventful afternoon, with a couple of glaring misses and a couple of efforts cleared off the line, all this after he came close to opening the scoring, charging down a Liam Higginbotham clearance only for the woodwork to spare the Woodley keeper's blushes.


Things took a turn for the worse for the visitors after 25 minutes, Tom Jones penalised for pulling back Mike Clarke when the last defender, with the inevitable red card still visible in the next referee's hand in the next photo.


Woodley take full advantage to take a two goal interval lead, Kristian Dennis finishing off a chance at the second attempt, and then providing the cross for Scott Hogan to head home the second.

The next photo would provide a real challenge in a spot-the-ball competition.


A view of yet another plane flying over the ground.


Five minutes after the interval a Mike Clarke header comes back off the post, a real turning point as ten man Sheffield would surely not have come back from three down.

They do receive a lifeline after 55 minutes, Sam Walker clipping Chris Adam's heels, and Jordan Eagers stepping up to make it 2-1 from the penalty spot.


From that point on the visitors dominate proceedings, fully deserving their 76th minute equaliser as Ashley Burbeary heads home a Greg Wright cross, and despite their numerical disadvantage Sheffield have the better chances to win the game, although they are clearly happy to settle for a replay that looked very unlikely earlier in the afternoon.