Blacon Medallions - Whalley Minutely Out Of Range......

And so to the 19th of June and what almost certainly will prove to be the Cheshire League Division Two title decider - Cairns Crescent, Blacon on the outskirts of Chester and leaders Blacon Youth FC versus second place Whalley Range.

Blacon's background was covered last week in their comfortable 5-0 win at Hartford - the threatened three points deduction remains just that, with this their final fixture of the season, and a record of 16 wins and 3 defeats in their 19 league games. Range finish at bottom of the table Hartford next weekend, sitting seven (potentially four) points behind Youth...

And so to the visitors from the Kings Road, not in Chelsea, instead in the humbler surroundings of Whalley Range.

 

The Whalley Range Amateur Football Club has had a continuous existence from 1900, and may have started ten years before that. In 1903 it became one of the founder members of the Manchester section of the Lancashire Amateur League and from 1919 a member of the Amateur Football Association.

 

Promoted as champions of the Lancashire & Cheshire Premier League in the 2019/20 season the Range commenced this term in Cheshire League Division Two. A fine start to the season with 4 straight wins 5-0, 6-3, 8-2, 9-1 then a 1-1 draw, ruining their perfect start, at Sandbach, left them top. A 9-0 home drubbing of the orful, and now extinct, Orford was where I saw them last.

 

Subsequently a voided game at Golborne Sports, both sides awarded no points for 'failure to control players' has left the Range behind Blacon Youth in second - a 3-2 defeat to Blacon at home and that voided match potentially costing them the championship.

So it's another warm breezy summer's day with a bruised sky and periodic sunshine as I set out for the 1400 kick off, past the travellers who have moved on from the Pelican car park to St Ambrose, Blessed Thomas Holford and now Salisbury Fields. Beyond Altrincham Eyelash Extensions (!) and the 'Not So Secret Garden' in the Stamford Quarter, I reach the M56, with the A556 still blighted by weekend roadworks.

Avoiding the Inland Border Facility at Appleton Thorn, Stanlow still belching and then it's off onto the A540, bypassing Little and Great Saughall, beyond Mollington Banastre and the Secret Diva - so secret it's shut !! Into Melbourne Road where the Whalley Range coach is parked, then right into Cairns Crescent; I choose, from experience, to avoid the limited parking inside the Cairns Crescent Play Area, taking my chances on the council estate streets. Numberplates on offer today are D1GGY, R3HAB (?) and F7USH, the latter a van operated by Fuel Flush, specialising in helping motorists who have filled up with the wrong fuel....

Inside a huge crowd (for this level - Non League Step 9) of approximately 125 (25 away) gathers, with the ground dedicated to Len & Bob Evans, in honour of the club's founders. The dressing rooms are immediately to my left then the clubhouse with its strapline highlighting '19 This is Blacon 64'. At the top end is a mini pitch and another well worn full size lawn.

Unusually, for this level, we have two linesmen ('Liner if you want to keep your windows you know what to do'), and, less unusually, a rather portly referee, wearing yellow. Blacon are in black and white stripes, sponsored by Henry's Horticulture & Landscapes, Whalley Range in red with faded black stripes, and sponsored by SLA Property Maintenance.

Blacon start the better and are guilty of a stinker of a miss, shooting straight at Range keeper Nicolae Stinca. So on 19 minutes, against the run of play, it's a surprise when Jack Timmons, with a wonderful piece of skill, slots Whalley ahead with their first and only real chance of the half.

A flare up midway through brings two yellow cards, with several more to follow. Then Youth's Aaron Hinchliffe is fouled in the box six minutes before half time, and Sam Henry converts the penalty. 1-1 at the break, and a first ever sighting of a Blacon player smoking a joint - it's tense....

Six minutes into the second period a dreadful Blacon free kick produces a swift Range counter attack, the ball is played wide right and then squared for Danny Heffernan to side foot in. But Whalley are thereafter reduced to 9 men with 2 sinbinnings for dissent to the aforementioned linesman: Blacon seem bereft of invention and inspiration, however.

But having gone back up to 10 players, Micky Connor heads home, socially distanced, from a corner to make it 3-1 on 76 minutes. Four minutes on Hinchliffe is fouled, seemingly outside the area, but a penalty is given and Henry obliges again.

With five minutes to go a glorious ball is played over to the left wing, and a sumptuous cross is gleefully volleyed home by Hinchliffe for 3-3. Absolute bedlam, a pitch invasion and flares set off, but further twists are to come....

A minute into stoppage time a wild tackle gives Range a free kick well within, er, range of the goal. Timmons hits the inside of the post and Heffernan gobbles up the rebound to make it 4-3 to Whalley, and there is a second pitch invasion.

Then on 94 minutes Blacon fashion their last chance; Hinchliffe has his shot saved, but the ball is recycled and cut back, then thrashed home to make it 4-4 and prompt a third crowd invasion.

A fourth pitch invasion takes place barely a minute later, as the man in yellow blows for full time - Blacon champions and Invincibles, points deduction or no, and Whalley going from the Theatre of Dreams to, in the city of Chester, the Cathedral of Despair......

Quite quite incredible.. and a fitting finale to the season as Range, promoted nonetheless, subsequently receive an away walkover for the Hartford game, with the Harts unable to provide a pitch or a team....