Cheshire Scramble

FC St Helens  2  Cheadle Town Reserves  0

Cheshire Football League – First Division

With news breaking on the Thursday that four teams were being promoted from the top tier of the Cheshire League to Step 6, the number of vacant spaces for 2018-19 was confirmed as being five.

Four of the spaces were to replace the promoted teams, and a further place was available to fill the vacancy created by the departure of Rudheath Social at the start of the current campaign.

The promotion scramble was very much on, and with Daten already assured of a promotion place, and Egerton almost mathematically certain, it meant three from the foursome of Lostock Gralam, Pilkington, Middlewich Town and FC St Helens were going to be the fortunate ones.

Going into the Saturday, the big game was Lostock Gralam v Pilkington, whereas Middlewich were entertaining Halebank, but my choice was FC St Helens v Cheadle Town Reserves.

I must admit I’d not done my research properly regarding St Helens, I’d got it into my head that they played on one of the grass pitches at Ruskin Drive, the new home of St Helens Town, but that was purely on the basis they were playing a game their earlier in the season on the infamous night of the floodlight switch off when visiting Abbey Hulton were about to take a penalty in their game at Town.

Social Club

It turns out that was something of a one off, as the actual ground of FC St Helens is Windleshaw Sports, which to be fair is only a stones throw away from Ruskin Drive.

Upon leaving the East Lancashire Road on a beautifully sunny day, the sat-nav took me through the pleasant outskirt of Windle before I located the Windleshaw Sports ground down the narrow terraced streets. The car park was already full so I found a space on the street outside and took the short walk up through the gates.

Two teams were busy warming up, which always comes as a relief at this time of the year which has been renowned for ‘no shows’. To be fair though, my experience is that the Cheshire League is very reliable when it comes to the late season fixtures and it’s pretty rare that a cry off occurs. I was still a touch nervous though as visiting Cheadle Town Reserves had not been able to fulfil a fixture a couple of weeks back at AFC Macclesfield, but it appears that was very much an isolated incident.

Nursing Home

My eyes lit up at the sight of an open clubhouse, and very nice it was too. It came as a bit of a surprise to see they’d produced a programme for the game as well, their first ever so it appears. A decent number of folk had decided to pop down and watch the game so consequently the clubhouse was doing a brisk trade.

FC St Helens are a young club, only formed a few years ago. They do seem to have some connection with St Helens Town via the Junior section, but I’m not sure how formal this is. I did wonder whether the formation of the club had anything to do with the ongoing problems Town were having finding a home in the area, but either way, they are a club in their own right and the notes in the programme talked about applying for Step 6 status next season should they get promotion this time around. Ambition is clearly not in short supply!

The ground is fully enclosed and railed on two sides, with plenty of scope for expansion. Given the proximity of housing (and a care home) on all four sides, I’m not sure how viable it would be to get floodlights, but Town managed it a couple of hundred yards away, so arguably why not?

With the visitors bottom of the table, I was expecting a reasonably comfortable home victory, but in fairness to Cheadle they put up a great effort and certainly showed no evidence of going through any motions. Integrity is vitally important at this stage of the season with promotion at stake so it was good to see that sides don’t simply turn up and see the game out.

Match Action

A goal in each half on the back of a solid rather than spectacular performance saw St Helens take the three points, with Mick Houghton and George Mylona being the players to find the net.

Elsewhere, Pilkington won 4-1 at Lostock Gralam while Middlewich recorded a comfortable victory. 

This now meant promotion was in the hands of Middlewich and St Helens, with Pilkington having secured it and Lostock having to rely on others.

If those two sides were to avoid defeat the following midweek then promotion would be assured, and given I’m writing this after those games, I can confirm that both will be Premier Division sides next season!

A really enjoyable day out at a friendly and progressive football club, next season will be tough, with some very stoing sides in the Premier Division, but we do have a remarkable situation whereby three years ago we did begin to wonder whether we would see senior non-league football in St Helens again. Now we could potentially have two in a years time!

Keep an eye on them, in fact no, pay them a visit…….

Urban Yet Rural