No Port In A Storm - Saints March On As Goals Rain In...

And so to Black Park Road and Yockings Park, just over the Shropshire border and the home of Whitchurch Alport FC. Today sees a first ever visit from St Helens Town FC in the North West Counties Football League Division One.

Whitchurch Alport FC, 'The Reds', was formed in 1946 and joined the Shrewsbury & District League. The club was named after Alport Farm on Alport Road, the home of local footballer Coley Maddocks, who was killed in action in the Second World War. As 1947/48 champions of the Shrewsbury & District League, the club was elected to the Birmingham League - but news of the proposed Mid Cheshire League reached the ears of the committee and this led to them becoming founder members.

Affectionately known as the 'Allbran Allstars', Alport were champions of the Mid Cheshire League in 1970, and are ten time winners of the Shropshire Cup. The Commander Ethelston Cup was also won on numerous occasions, and the Reds became the last English club to win the Welsh Amateur Cup in 1974.

The club took the decision to move down to the Mercian Regional Football League in 2012, and, after squad strengthening and ground improvements, applied to join the North West Counties last summer. Initially denied by the FA, they were admitted on appeal. A torrid inaugural season has ensued, with just a solitary league victory, bottom of the table, and manager Richie O'Keeffe leaving the club two days ago.

The original St Helens Town club was formed in 1901, playing at Park Road, behind the Primrose Vaults pub, although the players changed further down the road at the Black Horse. Playing in the Lancashire League and Lancashire Combination, the team initially prospered but struggled after World War 1 and folded midway during the 1928/29 season.

The Saints were reformed by George Fryer and a group of local businessmen in 1946, playing at the former cricket ground at Hoghton Road, Sutton. They took over local team Derbyshire Hill Rovers in April 1947 and entered the Liverpool County Combination.

Former German prisoner of war Bert Trautmann joined the club in the summer of 1948 and the following season Town entered the Lancashire Combination. Despite losing Trautmann to Manchester City in October 1949, the Second Division title was secured.

However after two relegations it was a return to the Lancashire Combination in 1956, a league they won in 1972, 9 points clear of Accrington Stanley (who are they ?!). A move across to the Cheshire League in 1975 was the forerunner to becoming a founder member of the North West Counties in 1982.

The Saints won the FA Vase in 1987, beating near neighbours Warrington Town 3-2 at Wembley. Then, in 2000, the club left Hoghton Road, with the facilities quickly falling into disrepair and the site was sold for housing two years later. The Saints ground shared with St Helens RLFC at Knowsley Road for ten years but the intended relocation to Langtree Park never materialised. Subsequently they have shared with Ashton Town and now at Brocstedes Park, home of Ashton Athletic.

The club did hold the proud record of being the only team to play in the North West Counties top flight in every season until April 2015 when, on the last day, a Silsden injury time equaliser condemned them to relegation. Hopes for this season are to bounce back at the first attempt, and to move into a Council owned multi sports facility at Ruskin Drive in the town for 2016/17.

With the forecast heavy rain yet to make an appearance, it's a balmy 15°C with patchy sunshine as I move onto a Manchester Road still blighted by the arson ravaged Bayer building, and still (un)protected 24 hours by Universal Security Guards. The bushes have been trimmed at Totty Towers, and on the opposite pavement are two hoolies, one pushing the other on a stolen B&Q trolley.

To the M56 and an exit at the familiar haunts of the Stretton Fox and the Hollow Tree, to join the A49. Past a barn ablaze on the left, then the boarded up (and hence not so) Bella Napoli restaurant at Acton Bridge before ignoring the attractions of the Vale Royal Falconry Centre and Karma Rooms and White Hart Serenity in Cuddington.

Cheshire Polo Club and Cabbage Hall are also bypassed before I come to the Fox and Barrel - fittingly there is plenty of roadkill just beyond !! And then Panama Hatty's in Spurstow, Bunbury Mill and Cholmondeley Castle beyond which is a used car garage operated by Lou Coffin & Co - and yes business is dead this afternoon....Not much call for second hand coffins, I guess.....

Finally to the outskirts of Shropshire and the Willeymoor Lock Tavern and then into the market town of Whitchurch with its impressive St Alkmund's Church and, via a detour (OK a wrong turning !), the iconic J B Joyce turret clock manufacturers building.

When I find the right way it's a side road Talbot Street leading to Black Park Road just north east of the town and Yockings Park is on the left. A narrow one track entrance and car park which, after the Eccleshall mud trap, I avoid. A fiver in with a free programme - a nice touch.

Yockings Park is a two and a half sided ground built out of a farmer's field. The far end is out of bounds - a grass bank and then a tall hedge with farmland beyond - whilst the near end is the driveway to the car park, which is behind a covered shelter that runs to half way, then the dugouts and open standing.

The popular side supports the homely clubhouse and the main stand plus the dressing rooms constructed from wooden packing crates acquired from the Military Camp at Prees Heath shortly after the end of the Second World War. The stand just stretches over the halfway line but there is no access beyond. Four St Helens Town flags draped from the stand take centre stage.

The Reds are, unsurprisingly, in all red and the Saints in change all sky blue. The match kicks off in light drizzle with Alport having the advantage of a strong wind behind their backs. A bobbly pitch and the wind contrive to make the first few minutes eminently forgettable.

On the quarter hour Saints' first foray into Alport territory yields a free kick near the corner flag. The ball is flicked on for right back Aaron Morris to volley home via the underside of the bar. Aside from an Matt Baldwin effort destined for the top corner and well turned away by Saints' keeper Matthew Hodge, a horribly spooned effort over the hedge and a near own goal, Whitchurch struggle to take advantage of playing with the wind. Indeed the visitors could be further ahead as Saints' captain Andy Gillespie fires narrowly wide and George Lomax, in a two on one, chooses the greedy option and loses control.

Half time arrives with Town one up and the rain getting steadily heavier. Within a minute of the restart a ball over the top is dreadfully misjudged leaving Lomax all alone and he waltzes past keeper Gary Tinsley to make it 2-0 to the visitors

 The brooding sky then begins to wreak havoc as the elements are unleashed. The thermometer ticks down to 7°C, lightning streaks the sky and torrential horizontal rain is literally hurled onto the pitch by a raging wind as Storm Katie batters Yockings Park. There is no sanctuary in the main stand from the weather, with every occupant huddled together on the back row. Indeed the only place to escape the worst of the teeming rain is the covered shelter on the opposite side. In front of this the paunchy and rather weatherbeaten linesman is asked if he wants waders or a dinghy (water wings is his response) on a touch line resembling a lake.

Puddles appear on the pitch and the referee takes both captains aside to inform them that if conditions don't improve in the next five minutes the players will be taken from the field. Fortunately the storm abates, marginally, and the pitch does not deteriorate markedly.

The home side are then given a big opportunity to get back into the match when they are awarded a penalty for handball. Tom Smith's spot kick is well saved by Hodge however and the Reds visibly disintegrate.

The Alport defence is all at sea as marauding left back Ste Rigby, in oceans of space, is allowed to run on and dink the ball over Tinsley to make it 3-0. Wave after wave of Saints' pressure sees Gillespie miss three one on ones, two high, wide and not very handsome clearing the hedge, and one straight at the keeper. Livewire sub Shaun Brady slots home a fourth, a goal is disallowed, chances cleared off the line and profligacy leads to a shout from the stand of 'Saints this is sh*te'..... Alport can only muster a fierce Ryan Baxter shot straight into Hodge's chest from a counter attack.

And then on 82 minutes Gillespie has his moment; Brady's shot hits the inside of the post and from inches Saints' captain scores their fifth. You would have thought he had won the World Cup.........
Earnest entreaties from the bedraggled linesman of 'Please no stoppage time' are granted by the referee who mercifully blows exactly on ninety minutes and the match finishes, just like the good old days, at bang on twenty to five with Saints emphatic 5-0 victors :)

PS Easter Monday's proposed trip to Hanley fell victim to waterlogging, so I popped over to Townfield, home of Barnton FC, to see how Alport would fare on their travels. Hoping for a goal or two, here's how it finished :

'Barnton's 11-1 win over Whitchurch Alport on Easter Monday was only the second time that score has been recorded in NWCFL history.

The other previous occurrence was on 10th Jan 1998, when Fleetwood Freeport beat Stantondale by the same score in a Division Two game.

One other point worth mentioning on the game is in relation to the times of the last three goals Barnton scored.  We have no complete records on goal times for every game in league history going back to 1982, but it is fair to say that there won't have been many instances in the past of a player scoring three goals with the times all recorded as being in the 90th minute, as Kevin Towey achieved.'