There's one thing you can always put money on, any Cheadle team you face in a Cup game will be tough to beat....but beat them we did.
After losing to a strong Cheadle A team in last years Junior Flags Final and falling to them just in the last fixture of 2025, Wilmslow arrived at the opponents grounds to prove themselves worthy to advance in the Cup competition and get Slowtown back on track after a wobble or two during the first half of the season.
Both teams fielded stronger teams than during their last encounter. With the game being played on Cheadle's second team there was period Wilmslow would need to learn to play around the quirks of the pitch dimensions with it not only being incredible narrow but also missing a large corner on one end.
Cheadle would open the scoring and soon score again to take an early 2 goal lead. Wilmslow could not let them have a third. With Louis Andrews dodging on the left wing he would find Fraser Hunter with a great finish inside. Andrews would follow up with a goal himself. Wilmslow were back in the fight. Oscar Mellor bagged his 1st of the game to give Wilmslow the lead but Cheadle tied it up at 3-3 at the end of the period.
Much like the the first quarter, the second would be low scoring with the 2 goals for each team. Mellor finding Tom Brooks on a set play before Mellor would capitalize on a defensive mismatch scoring his 2nd of the game for Wilmslow.
With the half tied at 5-5 there was feeling that Cheadle might just be losing a little composure as where Wilmslow were really starting to step up and find their groove. One thing to note is that unlike most games in recent seasons, the referees were letting the guys play a physical game and kept the flags in their pockets, it was refreshing to see the wind knocked out of a guy no matter what shirt he wore.
The Wilmslow midfield engine had done a great job killing many Cheadle transition opportunities which had been an issue late in the previous encounter prior to Christmas but also had shown better composure offensively and playing a little more heads up when dodging.
Chatterton bullied his way to the cage to score his first before Simpson-Pink showed some great hustle riding which saw him pick out a Cheadle pass on their clear and find Chatterton open to bag his second. Simpson-Pink also tallied an assist to Mellor on man up who literally tore the Cheadle net. The home team would only score the one goal in the 3rd quarter.
Wilmslow's defense had done an outstanding job to hold Cheadle to just 5 goals at the half as they were one of the 2 most experienced units Wilmslow have faced to date this year with Bennett, Shanahan and Boyd all having represented England in multiple International tournaments. This might have been the most disciplined performance from a Wilmslow defense in years.
As much as Wilmslow wanted to play longer possessions, the small field made it hard to kill the clock and Cheadle clearly needed to press the ball whenever possible. Cheadle upped their game in the last 15 minutes and would score 4 goals to win the quarter but a goal from Chatterton and 2 goals from Eastwood would seal the deal for Wilmslow.
Jay Jones was Wilmslow's man of the match with an outstanding performance on defense. If Wilmslow can use this win as a catalyst who knows what could achieved, there are plenty of points still to had in the league if we want to take them and with some fire in our belly we could make another good Cup run.
