Hatters defy experts tip of tough ties
APPARENTLY, this time last week, the experts were saying that we had two tough games coming up. On paper Altrincham and Bradford (Park Avenue) were supposed to be “in form” and “hard to beat”. Really! Well County made light work of both, winning 1-0 and 3-0 respectively to continue our fantastic unbeaten run, neither Alty or B(PA) offered anything to worry Ben Hinchliffe to the point that he could have played both games in his slippers.
A bit blasé perhaps but County’s continued dominance reduced both to harmless shots from distance that meant Ben could have put his feet up and read a good book.
Our 4th (FOURTH) win over Altrincham this season was a game that could only be described as “all one way”.
Possibly the home side were fazed be the sheer numbers that stood on the away terracing because they just didn’t want to get to close to us behind Ben’s goal. The winning goal came our way via a sublime pass from Frank Mulhern into the path of Matty Warburton who rounded the keeper to slot home from 10 yards. The vast majority of the J Davidson Stadium erupted on 3 sides and the first win of the New Year was ours.
On Saturday Bradford (Park Avenue), I’ve no idea why they insist on brackets this season but they do, came to EP with a pretty good record so far, they’ve scored in every game and have been vying with Chorley for top spot all season but to be honest I think on this performance they’re in a false position, they offered nothing at all.
Not even the ex-County players they had could raise their game. As early as the 5th minute they had had a warning and just a minute later Matty struck the sweetest of shots into the bottom corner. The B(PA) keeper was playing his first game and it showed, he was very nervous in front of the Cheadle End.
We dominated the midfield and the wings so much that the visitors didn’t have a meaningful shot on target in the half, sorry make that the game as the second half was just like the first.
The second came from the boot of Darren Stephenson, who had his best game of the season (let’s hope he has some new found confidence), the third had a touch of comedy as Frank stole the ball from the inexperienced keeper and tapped it home to round off a great week.
I’m convinced 2019 is our year.