Both of the clubs we featured this weekend secured fantastic victories on the road as Newcastle Town won at Trafford and Congleton grabbed a last gasp winner to defeat Atherton Collieries.
Newcastle Town headed to South West Manchester with a fair bit of confidence after their 1-0 win over City of Liverpool on Monday night thanks to new boy Tim Grice’s debut goal for the club.
After a cagey opening half an hour, Castle took the lead when some good hold up play by the front line saw the ball fall to Ethan Vale on the edge of the area. The midfielder hit the effort through a crowd of bodies and into the corner of the goal.
Castle’s cause was helped shortly afterwards by the referee’s decision to send Sean Higgins off for a nasty looking tackle on Jack Sherratt.
That dismissal allowed Newcastle to come out and play some excellent free-flowing football in the second half and, they deservedly took the lead 10 minutes after the break when the ball was worked to Jake Twyford and, he curled the ball beyond Sam Booth into the top corner of the goal.
Grice put the icing on the cake for Newcastle on 66 minutes when he broke the offside trap before rounding Booth to slot into an empty net.
Trafford did pull one back through Cian Donohue with three minutes to go which blotted the copybook but, Castle held on for a fine victory.
After the game, I got the reaction of Neil Baker to see what he made of the victory.
Our featured commentary game on Saturday came from the Deams2Reality Stadium as Congleton took on Atherton Collieries in what turned out to be a real ding-dong match.
The hosts took the lead through Keilen Adams after just four minutes of play.
However, Congleton rallied after that with Max McCarthy pulling the Bears’ level on 12 minutes before giving them the lead on 36 minutes.
Adams got his second of the afternoon just two minutes before the half-time break to send the two teams back to the changing rooms level.
Calen Gallagher restored Atherton’s lead on 63 minutes and, it looked like the Bolton based club was going to take all three points until Tom Hampton equalised with three minutes of normal time to go.
The Bears seized all three points in the third minute of injury time when George Sankey scored a lovely goal to seal the win.
After the match, a relieved Richard Duffy spoke to Dave Stringer.
Elsewhere Nantwich Town are 3rd in the Northern Premier League West after they defeated City of Liverpool 2-0, Buxton drew 2-2 at Kidderminster Harriers in the National League North, while Foley Meir and Sandbach United got wins in the North West Counties Football League South division, Alsager Town drew 2-2 at Wolverhampton Sporting Community.
