Ashville FC

 I made my way from North Wales back over to Merseyside via Chester, to Wallasey Village to be precise and the ground of Ashville FC. A short walk away from Wallasey Village Merseyrail station it was really easy to find, walk along the road to Lidl, turn left to the end and through the Rugby club to the football pitch. Turnstile is cash and card £6 entry and as always around Liverpool a warm welcome received by the volunteers, a huge tub of complimentary mints on the gate of which I was invited to take a few. The ground is OK, strangely the side where the dugouts were was fenced off, there is a small seated covered area and plenty of standing space along the other side. I chose to stand despite the brief downpour, due to the seating being uncomfortable for me, same wherever I go. There is a decent sized clubhouse, with a small cafe, selling excellent Lancashire Hot Pot Pies for £2, it was so nice I nearly went back for a second but resisted.

The game was against new boys to the league Flixton FC, who had brought probably 35 fans with them, given the attendance was 109 this was most welcome to boost the coffers. The first half was really scrappy, tooing and frowing, lots of long balls and niggly fouls with no side really dominating. There was a sense of the Manchester, Liverpool rivalry with some funny comments exchanged between Flixton Fans and an Ashville player which resulted in the player calling him a tramp and running off laughing. Didn't hear any more after that. I went into the bar at half time to shelter and I was a bit tired of the lack of quality on show, I dried off and set off out with renewed hope for the second half and it didn't disappoint.

Seconds in, the Flixton defence was caught cold and Ashville scored, sadly after the lack of action first half I was also caught cold in planning my onward travel to the West Lancs groundhop day the following day and I missed the finish, I was seething and hoping there would be more action. I wasn't disappointed and 10 minutes in, Flixton were awarded a penalty after the Ashville defender clumsily lunged in, however a brilliant save kept the score at 1-0. In the 65th minute though, another mix up in the home defence, the keeper fumbled and the Flixton number 10 made no mistake in equalising. He was at it minutes later with a powerful arrowed finish into the bottom corner nudged the away side ahead much to their fans delight. The Flixton number 10 was flying sky high and a minute later he completed the hat trick, turning the Ashville defence inside out, before a deflected shot found the net, what a turnaround and Ashville looked shocked and out of ideas. It was 4-1 with 14 minutes left as the ball was stroked home from a corner, this confirmed the points would return to Flixton but the home side did stir and mounted one last attack, firstly they had an excellent chance from a corner that the number 4 put wastefully wide before Flixton hit the bar with a diving header, Ashville broke and were straight down the other end, the forward suddenly found himself clean through as the defence stood static and he raced through for a fine consolation goal. 4-2 it finished, you would have got good odds on this scoreline at half time when it had 0-0 written all over it.