Scalp hunters sent home without prize
THE magic of the FA Cup is still very much alive in Stockport.
This leafy glade of North Cheshire is always up for the cup and when near neighbours with big ideas come calling, the boys in blue do a clinical job and despatch those pretenders home for some serious soul searching.
Altrincham arrived at EP thinking they had a decent chance of taking a scalp; they’ve invested a bit of cash and spent wisely.
We’ve seen both Jake Moult and James Poole play against us recently; there were a couple of ex-players in Connor Hampson and Sean Williams.
They also have the much talked about Jordan Hulme who certainly knows where the goal is (he also has a reputation for losing his head).
The Robins started brightly without ever really threatening our goal Hulme was a handful but between them Ash Palmer and Jamie Stott comfortably dealt with all his shenanigans, both on and off the ball!
The midfield was the real battle ground, I’d be interested to see one of those Sky Sports type graphics things that show statistics about possession and in what area of the pitch the majority of play was in, I’m betting that Walker, Warburton and Osbourne knew they’d been in a game at 5pm.
As the game went though we started to get more and more into it, you could argue that we scored against the run of play; it was certainly our first decent attempt on goal, a good cross a great header from Palmer and Mulhern has the simplest of touches to send us in 1-0 at half time.
Now you’d expect Alty to press forward in the second period and they didn’t disappoint. However, Jim’s words of wisdom soon paid off as Matty Warburton, the coolest player on the pitch, doubled our lead after the away defence got itself all in a muddle, calmly rounding the keeper to send us into the first round proper.
We still had time to see the ball in the net again but Jamie Stott’s strike was ruled out for some unknown reason and a decent penalty appeal turned down as Frank Mulhern was clearly brought down by the keeper’s clumsiness.
Maybe the referee just wanted us to know he was there, I can’t see why either decision went against us?
But still, we’re into the first round and another £25K in the bank.
At times like this, I love being a County fan!