Cheshire FL 4-2 West Riding County Amateur

A beautiful afternoon and a stunning playing surface, Knutsford FC played host to this last 32 game in the National league systems cup, and great hosts they were too, an absolute credit to Cheshire league.

Cheshire were dealt a blow prior to kick off, losing a player in the final hour’s preparation. This forced a slight change in personnel, but still the side looked strong.
Cheshire were fast out of the blocks, sweeping the ball around and seemingly camping out in the West Riding half. An early chance for George Burgess went begging, but it wasn't long before the deadlock was broken, as some lovely wing play from Tom Swann ended with the wide man crossing well for the on rushing Ben Slater to score a well placed header from 12 yards out, glancing the ball just out of the reach of the 'keeper.
The lead should have been doubled, as Swann was found by Burgess, only 6 yards out but his shot was straight at the goalkeeper. The two then linked again as Swann made a yard of space and flashed the ball across goal but Burgess fired wide.

Cheshire looked comfortable. Connor Yarwood was rarely troubled and, but for Josh Kavanagh making a last ditch challenge to stop a point blank shot, West Riding were looking second best for the first half hour.
The missed chances looked like they would prove costly as West Riding began to get a foothold in the game, Hey and Brown looking threatening in attack, Jenyons making a thunderous tackle on the latter to thwart another attack on 36 minutes. The Yorkshire side looked dangerous from set pieces, and it was from a long throw that they scored the equaliser, right on the stroke of half time. The throw was poorly dealt with and,
although from a rather fortuitous bounce, the striker stroked past Yarwood well from 7 yards.
Half time 1-1
The opening exchanges of the second half belonged to West Riding. They had much more purpose and were direct in the first 15 minutes of the half. They deservedly took the lead on 53 minutes as Yarwood was adjudged to have brought down the striker in the box. The number 10 made no mistake with the resulting penalty.
Almost floundering in the game at this point, Cheshire made changes in shape and personnel, introducing Sutch and Rezayan to the game, and pushing the very threatening Owens along side Burgess. The change paid dividends almost immediately, as Rezayan made a bursting run through the heart of the West Riding defence, Owens finding him with a sublime pass, and Rezayan stroked home to equalise.
Pickford was pulling the strings in the middle, and really began to orchestrate the game. It was he who set Owens away down the left on 74 minutes, as the forward beat his man and his pin point cross was headed home by Burgess. A few set piece scares followed but were dealt with well. Prescott and Jenyons looked assured and composed.
The tireless Owens wrapped things up in the dying moments, chasing down the goalkeeper, dispossession him and calmly passing the ball home to make it 4-2.
A deserved victory.

Manager, Jimmy Bush
"It wasn't the best preparation during the lead up to the game. We had several players unavailable, and actually started the game with 9 lads making their debuts. It's tough, we have a long list of players and that list grows each week as we see more teams. We have a league full of quality players and that showed today. I'm dead proud of the players. We asked them to play a certain way and gave individual instructions to the lads. They carried them out to the letter. We deserved this win, we outplayed them and dominated the ball. Pickford epitomised that in the middle. I was really pleased with it all.
We need to make sure we don't get carried away after the game today though, we will have tougher tests than this coming up, and we need to be ready for that"

Team
1. Connor Yarwood (Greenalls PSO)
2. Josh Kavanagh (Warrington Town res)
3. Sean Lynch (Knutsford)
4. Callum Wilson (Rylands)
5. Steve Jenyons (C) (Knutsford)
6. Adam Prescott (Greenalls PSO)
7. George Burgess (Whaley Bridge)
8. James Pickford (Knutsford)
9. Tom Swann (Rylands)
10. Ben Slater (Greenalls PSO)
11. David Owens (Knutsford)

Subs
12. Ellis Houghton (Greenalls PSO)
13. Aaron Tyrer (Linotype CHN)
14. Ebbie Rezayan (Knutsford)
15. Neil Sutch (Greenalls PSO)