11am 30 June 2024
Eccles Sunday League
Prestley 10 Ellesmere Park Rovers 1 (att 18)
The 150th and final game of my 2023/24 football season was also my 146th new ground, although I couldn't be sure of that until I found the pitch at Drinkwater Park in Prestwich.
In 2006 I'd seen Bury Amateurs play a home game on pitch number two. The park is only a couple of miles from home so I thought it worth going see if Prestley might be using a different pitch.
I was in luck, with the pitch used for this game closer to the car park and several minutes' walk from where I'd seen the previous game. It's just a pitch, but a pleasant setting in a park that is popular with locals.
With Prestley unbeaten in the league, and Ellesmere Park struggling, a comfortable home win looked likely. That's how it turned out, but it took until the second half before the game ran away from the visitors.
An opening goal after 15 minutes, and a second just five minutes later, put Prestley on the road to victory. They scored a third before half time, but too often they'd been caught offside.
They clearly sorted that problem during the break. It became 4-0 just two minutes after the restart, and goals flowed through the half. The visiting keeper made some decent saves to keep the score down.
Ellesmere Park Rovers were left with the scant consolation of the game's final goal, at a time when Prestley were down to nine men with two having been needlessly sin-binned. The away side had their own issues with discipline, having had a pair of their players sin-binned, separately, earlier in the match.
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