Squires Gate 3
Nantwich Town 0
League (NW Counties League Div 1)

Match Report

Nantwich’s Jekyll and Hyde season continued as they slumped to a tame defeat on the Fylde coast after their rousing midweek performance at Stone.
Squires Gate dictated play for the whole of the match and, had they converted their chances, could have won by an even more convincing margin. As it was, the hosts netted three times and hit the bar on three occasions to complete an early season double over the Dabbers.
The movement of Gate’s two pronged attack of Kevin Urwin and Scott Bradford caused problems all afternoon for the visiting defence and the pair combined to open the scoring just before the half-hour mark. Nigel Gleghorn dwelt on the ball in his own penalty area and when Bradford nicked the ball off him, Urwin was on hand to convert his partner’s cross.
The Dabbers lacked spirit or any kind of spark and, within ten minutes of the re-start, the game was over as a contest. First, Craig Blinkhorn crossed from the right and Urwin nodded his second past the stranded Simon Pay. Five minutes later, a carbon copy move saw Alex Rawson supply the cross and, this time, Chris Blundell found himself in oceans of space to place his header out of Pay’s reach and make it 3-0.
Urwin could even afford to spurn a couple of chances to clinch his hat-trick whilst sub Ashley Lawton was the only Nantwich man to register an effort on target during the whole 90 minutes. In fact, the nearest the Dabbers came to scoring was as early as the twelfth minute when Dale Melling rose well to meet Danny Griggs’ corner but his header looped over the bar. Despite letting in three goals, Simon Pay was Nantwich’s man-of-the-match in a game that the Dabbers will quickly want to forget.
Squires Gate Speight, Ryan, McKenna, Blinkhorn, Thompson, Blundell, Rawson, Urwin (Brett,85), Bradford (Holloway,70), Bingham. Booked: Blundell (3mins)
Nantwich Pay, Hall, Melling (Maguire,42), Gleghorn, Jardine (Lawton,h-t), Vickers, Brookes, Knight, Thomas (Dawson,65), Wilkinson, Griggs. Booked: Knight (83mins)

Match report written by Michael Chatwin