NANTWICH TOWN V ASHTON UNITED SATURDAY 31 AUGUST 2013 OFFICIAL PROGRAMME OF NANTWICH TOWN FC TOWN NANTWICH OF PROGRAMME OFFICIAL £2 weaver&bomfords for everything your office needs 08456 123858 | www.weaverdigital.co.uk Good afternoon everyone, Today is a fantastic occasion for me personally and it gives me great pleasure in welcoming all the players, manage- ment, directors and supporters of Ashton United Football Club. Ashton are a club very close to my heart having spent the last 6 years there as manager. Since my departure Paul Phillips and Steve Halford have taken over as joint managers and are assembling a really good group of players. They have far too many special people behind the scenes for me MANAGER’S NOTES to mention but they know who they are! I wish everyone connected with the club all the very best for this season and the future. the dabber Our results of late haven't been acceptable and Monday’s performance at home to Witton Albion fell well short of what I expect from my team. The lads are fully aware and we will be EDITOR/ DESIGN looking to put a few things right this afternoon. Ashton will JAMES BRISCOE pose another big test for us as they have started the season really well and will no doubt be full of confidence and want to CONTRIBUTERS continue from where they left off on Monday. However, I am ADE ROBERTS, fully aware that things can change very quickly in football IAN GARNETT, and we will be looking to start to turn a corner today and put MICHAEL CHATWIN in a much improved performance. PHOTOGRAPHY The games against Skelmersdale and Matlock could have SIMON J. NEWBURY - gone either way and although we were very poor in the first www.simonjnewburyphotography.co.uk 45 minutes against Witton I am sure it would have been dif- ferent but for the sending off. You won’t hear us complaining, FRONT COVER EDIT we will just roll up our sleeves and look to move forward. The MATTHEW LIMESTALL - lads worked really hard in training on Thursday night and one @TheCornfed thing I can tell you is that they are certainly not suffering with a lack of confidence. The session was high tempo and it was NANTWICH TOWN FC very intense. Phil Eastwood uses the phrase 'train the way PRESIDENT FRANK BLUNTSTONE you play' quite a lot, well if we play today like we trained on CHAIRMAN JON GOLD Thursday we will be much, much better than we have been VICE-CHAIRMAN CLIVE JACKSON so far this season. DIRECTORS TONY DAVISON, JOHN DUNNING, I have big belief in this group of players but I have added STEVE TALBOT, BOB MELLING Stephen Johnson to our squad and barring a mishap I hope (NON-EXECUTIVE) he will be available for LIFE VICE-PRESIDENTS selection today. I worked CONTENTS NEVILLE CLARKE, ALBERT PYE, with Johno last season and 3 MANAGER’S NOTES PETER TEMMEN I am sure the supporters 5 FOOTBALL FACES CLUB SECRETARY JANET STUBBS will enjoy watching him do 9 THE NON-LEAGUE PAPER MATCH SECRETARY BERNARD his stuff at the Weaver PROGRAMME COLUMN LYCETT Stadium. He will certainly 11 THE BEAUTIFUL GAME have people on the edge of 13 GET TO KNOW THE DABBERS WEAVER STADIUM their seats and provide the 14 FIXTURE LIST & STATS WATERLODE team with some natural 19 MATCH REPORT NANTWICH width and pace. He has 20-23 ASHTON UNITED CHESHIRE two exceptionally good feet 25 EDITOR’S NOTES CW5 5BS and can play either side of 28 TODAY’S TEAMS midfield so provides us 01270 621771 with a great option. I am sure everyone connected with Nantwich Town Football Club [email protected] will give Johno a very warm welcome. Enjoy the game! *Football Faces* weaver&bomfords for everything your office needs 08456 123858 | www.weaverdigital.co.uk COMICAL red and yellow cards are becoming more and more common – and considering our love for football fun- nies here at The NLP, long may that continue! Referees are letting little slide these days. The book is coming out for increasingly bizarre incidents, there's little place for comedy where the men in black are concerned. So in the aftermath of one the more strange red cards on record last weekend, we thought we would chart the very best – or very worst – of the ones that have got on the wrong side of referees. Now that's a mis-timed tackle! Louis Smith wasn't having the best of days last Saturday. Left out of the AFC Croydon side to face Colliers Wood in the FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round, at 5-2 down there was little he could do when he got the call to come on finally came after 66 minutes. Referees don't like these thermal cycling shorts that seem to be in fashion, and whistle blower Jack Ohene didn't believe Smith when he said he had taken them off when the black ones he warmed up in didn't match the club’s maroon shorts. Smith protested that he'd removed the offending undergarment.... by not so subtly proving it! Sent off for flashing an official, his game was over before it started. Pires booked for taking the..... When you've got to go you've got to go. Welling's Loick Pires couldn't wait in September 2011 during the Wings Conference South clash with Woking. He jumped over the barrier in the first half and legged it into the supporters' toilets for a comfort break. His return was greeted with a yellow card for re-entering the field of player without permission. It left likeable Pires feeling rather flushed! Borat blunder is not niiiice! Ashley Vickers isn't a man to be messed with. So when a fan ran onto the pitch wearing nothing but a green mankini made famous by Borat and the stewards can't catch him, the 6'2 powerhouse is going in! The 38-year-old Dorchester player manager knew the importance of three points against Havant back in March 2011, and time was running out. So Vickers took down the illusive intruder and presented him to the club's security – only to be rewarded with a red card. “It beggars belief,” he grumbled. “The stewards actually thanked me!” It's a wind breaker! Levi Foster became the first player in the history of the game to be yellow carded... for breaking wind! The AFC GOP player was having his boots checked by referee Bunny Reid before the Portsmouth Sunday League clash with Apsley House in November 2009. The 30-year-old couldn't hold it in – and was lucky to be allowed to continue after team-mates talked the unim- pressed official round after a red card looked to be forthcoming. Levi, who went on to win man of the match in the 5-0 victory, blamed a dodgy Saturday night curry. Goal king Matt gets a bum rap! Wellingborough striker Matt Judge thought it would be a good 'craic' to moon AFC Rushden fans in the Northamp- tonshire Senior Cup last October. But it was a bum steer – as referee Scott Millar was watching. By the time he pulled his shorts up, the red card was in the air. The United Counties League side were forced to issue a statement apologising, labelling their player “stupid”. The cheek of it! The Beautiful Game – Dressed For Service? You wouldn’t turn up for work without the necessary uniform or safety gear would you? If you did, you’d probably be sent home to rectify the issue. Having said that, I do have a re-occurring dream that I get to work and have no socks on, or that I’m wearing pink sandals. That’s totally outrageous really as I don’t even own a pair of pink sandals! Anyhow, what’s the deal with Millwall turning up at Sheffield Wednesday recently with no kit to play in? You could understand it from a Sunday morning pub side but not a professional club surely? How embarrassing for them and especially for the kit man who eventually turned up with the players’ gear so they could change at the interval into their own strip. Having played the first half wearing an old (borrowed) Sheffield Wednesday strip, Millwall then took to the turf at the restart in their own colours. It must have been very confusing for both sets of supporters watching 45 minutes of Sheff Wednesday v Sheff Wednesday? We’re very proud of our colours and for us fans; we show this by wearing the replica shirts as worn by our play- ers. This however, is only a recent possibility. We’ve only been able to do so since the 1980’s as replica shirts didn’t get produced until then. Prior to the 80’s a rosette or scarf was the nearest we’d get to showing our col- ours at games. That must be really difficult to comprehend for the younger generation reading this, those that have never watched a black and white portable TV (with a coat hanger for an aerial) or can imagine life before mobile phones existed! Our clubs’ shirt gives us, and helps shape our identity. In the words of Liverpool’s Brendan Rogers ‘a football strip fuses a team together, it is a club’s uniform for players and fans alike’. I wonder if he feels the same about this seasons Liverpool away kit and 3rd kit. The re-introduction of ‘diamonds’ by US kit manufacturer Warrior would probably be enough of a turn-off to make any Liverpool fan switch to the blue of Everton – yes, the away and 3rd kits really are that bad! Some clubs go that extra mile with their club colours.