‘There’s no reason to fear anyone and our confidence is already high’

A HAPPY new season to you all and I know after Saturday’s opener, you’ll all be very happy indeed.

It’s been an odd summer so far, England’s performance in the World Cup kept us all occupied but it was just a pre-preseason.

The wait for the fixture list and the subsequent dissecting of it killed another day or two – the new arrivals came in with quite a bit of excitement, then the pre-season games.

We won the games we were expected to win – Buxton, Stockport town and Warrington – a draw against Macclesfield that was deserved, and two losses in games we should have lost, too, in Rochdale and Everton.

Over all not bad but August 4 arrived and another season kicked off.

The Moston fans arrived in numbers (but not too many, I was expecting much more after several conversations at work) and left with nowt because the men in Blue were dominant from the start and thoroughly deserved the tag of favourites for the league title.

Frank Mulhern opened his County account in the 10th minute – we’d already had several chances before the new number 9 rose the highest and headed goalwards, right in front of the Cheadle End as well – a new hero, quite possibly. Before the first half was over County had two more in the net.

Matty Warburton was gifted two tap-ins, the

first after a corner caused mayhem in the opposition’s penalty area and the second when Pitbull stormed the length of the park to lay it on a plate for County’s third.

We were all over the men in red and if we’d gone in five or six up, it wouldn’t have been an injustice. In the second half the Moston men had a 20 minute spell, and they grabbed a lucky goal.

A shot, that Ben Hinchliffe had covered, was deflected in – but even though they had the ball they didn’t really do anything with it. Changes were made and County once more started to control the game, and late on Pitbull scored with a ‘pile driver’ from distance that sent the Cheadle End wild and sent the very quiet visitors on their way home. As the left they would have the good fortune to witness the icing on the cake as Kallum Mantack scored the goal of the game as he lobbed the keeper from 25 yards and to hammer in the misery – celebrated in style right in from of the departing fans.

There’ll be much tougher opposition to come, starting with York on Tuesday, but our confidence is already high and there’s no reason why we should fear anyone – come on, County!