Villagers Soar As Eagles Have Their Wings Clipped - Eccy Thumped !!

And so to Mossie Park, and a village more renowned for its motorway service station than its football team - Charnock Richard. The visitors from the Adverc Stadium at Pershall Park, are 'The Eagles' of Eccleshall FC - 'We Play For The Badge & The Oat Cakes - We Are Eccy !!!' for today's North West Counties Division One fixture.

In 1933 the Chorley Sunday League became the Chorley Alliance League and a Charnock Richard village team was entered, competing until the outbreak of the Second World War. The club was reformed at the end of the War, winning the league title in 1947/48 but then ran into difficulties and closed down at the end of the following season.

 

The present club was reborn in 1955, playing in the Chorley Alliance League then the Preston & District League, with a brief flirtation with the Bolton Combination. In 1993 the Villagers joined the West Lancashire League and after winning the Premier Championship seven times, including four consecutive seasons from 2012 to 2015, moved up to the North West Counties this summer.

Eccleshall Town FC was established in 1908 but the most successful local team of that era was Eccleshall Comrades, set up in 1918. The Comrades' most famous player was the FA Cup Final scorer and winner (for Wolves), and England amateur and full international, The Reverend KRG Hunt. The club also featured in a curious incident when Stone Christ Church were defeated 5-0. The game ended 10 minutes early when first one ball burst, then another and there were no more available.......

 

Both clubs became defunct and the current club was founded in 1971 as Eccleshall Town Old Boys, the team made up of locals and staff from Eccleshall Secondary School, where they played their home games.

 

The Eagles joined the Staffordshire County League (North) in 1979, moved to Pershall Park in 1982 and ascended to the Staffordshire Senior League - now the Springbank Vending Midland League - in 1984. As Eccleshall FC championships were won in 1990 and then consecutively in 2001/02 and 2002/03. With work complete on the stadium the club moved up to the North West Counties Football League in 2003, but several seasons of inconsistency have followed, and last term's 16th place finish owed much to the ineptitude of the two clubs below them - Atherton Laburnum Rovers and Whitchurch Alport.

So on a bright October afternoon it's onto Washway Road, past a white van seemingly held together by gaffer tape and drawing up at the lights where Maidments are ludicrously championing themselves as 'Serious Crime Solicitors'; amusingly there is a To Let sign above the office.

 

Phil Novak and the Rat Pack are on at Garvey's, and then it's just another gridlock day at the Trafford Centre and Barton Bridge. Onto the M61 and that 'Incontinence Supplies At Internet Prices' sign and then off at Botany Bay. Through Euxton and into Charnock Richard, with Mossie Park down Charter Lane, just beyond Bevonair Hair Salon and Dignity Wigs, and just before you reach the village centre.

 

The ground is on the opposite side of Charter Lane to the old Mossie Close ground where the club were based from 1968, after playing elsewhere in the village. £4 in at the gate but you can watch the game for free from the car park....

 

Immediately inside is the entrance to the changing rooms, then the refreshment bar and, curiously, a converted garage. The small main covered seated stand is situated midway down the popular side, with a walkway and barriers that appear to be made from roller shutters surrounding the pitch. Two sides are tree lined and the far side is adjoined by the village cricket pitch.

The Villagers are in white and green (club colours have always contained green since the 1955 reformation) and the Eagles, who can only name two substitutes to the home side's five, are in change all red. One linesman has a paunch whilst the other is just plain obese, and they are joined by (we soon discover) a cantankerous referee.

 

The visitors' tactics of one up front, flood the midfield, contain and frustrate works well for the first three minutes. Then Spencer Bibby's cross finds an unmarked Carl Grimshaw and he sidefoots home. With second playing next to bottom the home crowd awaits a lorry load of goals, but surprisingly the Eagles swoop to equalise on ten minutes - some shambolic defending allowing Tom Wakefield the freedom of Mossie Park and he dinks over the keeper to level.

 

The rest of the half sees the Villagers in the ascendancy with the vast majority of possession, plenty of passing but unconvincing in the final third. Nonetheless they come close three times - Ollie Evans' horror air shot, Bibby's fierce strike well saved by the Eagles' stopper Stuart Robertson, and a deflected shot that just swirls wide.

 

The second period sees Charnock Richard, laboriously, dominate proceedings and the Eagles offer no attacking threat whatsoever, giving some respite to the heavily perspiring fat assistant referee. Grimshaw blazes over when he should have done much better, Robertson makes two fine saves, two shots are cleared off the line and two strong penalty shouts are waved away.

 

Finally, at the midpoint of the half, Robertson's goal is breached - a glorious scissor kick executed by Mark Adams from a cushioned header back, and a piece of skill quite out of keeping with the overall quality of the game.

 

With just under a quarter of an hour left the ball is played into Grimshaw, who appears to be crowded out by three defenders. To a plaintive cry from the crowd 'Don't shoot Carl, you'll never score from there', he rockets the ball home, via a stanchion, from a seemingly impossible angle.......

 

The 3-1 win takes the Villagers top, and leaves the Eagles flying low in 21st with 5 points from 13 games.