A glorious dry & sunny morning greeted the players as they ran out to applause from the massed spectator ranks onto Cheadle’s hallowed turf.
After what had seemed an endless winter of wet and snowy fixtures, Suzie was able to don her sunglasses to enjoy the match which started well with George winning the first face off leading to an early goal from Josh with a great assist from Miles.
A good early period of pressure from Mellor led to another assist from Miles allowing George to score the second goal.
This stirred Cheadle who responded quickly to pull a goal back before another goal from Josh assisted by Jack R made it 3-1 to Mellor.
The resulting face off was lost and Cheadle scored directly from it to pull another goal back.
For the rest of the quarter Mellor played well and Josh scored 3 more goals with assists by Finn and 2 from George plus a great shot from Ellis before Cheadle got one back just before the whistle to make it 6-3.
In scenes reminiscent of the 1923 Cup Final (but without the horse) the excitement was too much for some of the large crowd who were told by the panel ref to move to the other side of the pitch whilst he had to remind the coaches not to encroach onto the playing area.

The 2nd quarter was much tighter with a great early goal from Miles following good build up play by Jamie passing to allow Josh to assist.
John & Rick rotated the cup squad continually to make sure all the lads were involved and good defensive play from Robbie, Will, Jake, Toby and Fredrick between the sticks limited a well organised Cheadle side to just a couple more goals before Josh scored his 6th ably assisted by Jamie. Cheadle hit the bar and sterling work from their No. 10 kept Mellor busy and at the half time whistle the score stood at 8-5 to Mellor.

The 2nd half began badly for Mellor with 2 early Cheadle goals making the scoreline 8-7 with the tension building on the touchline and not a bacon butty in sight. However Mellor got their act together and proceeded to score the next 4 goals (Finn, Miles and 2 from George) with Josh assisting two of them despite taking a knock to the ground and hobbling for the rest of the game. The quarter ended with Mellor leading by a more comfortable 12-7 with James P and Eddie battling well.

The final quarter continued in the same way with Josh and the irrepressible Noah scoring before Jack R hit the post and Cheadle netted a late consolation goal to make the final score a relatively comfortable sounding 14-8 to Mellor. However the match felt closer than the scoreline suggests and the Mellor supporters were relieved that the disappointment of last season had not been repeated this year.
The match was played in a sporting manner epitomised by the actions of Will who helped up his Cheadle opponent near the end of the match.
It’s difficult to say who was the outstanding player of the day with so many great performances across the pitch but with 7 goals and playing almost half the match with an injured leg the man of the match has to be Josh!

Looking forward to the final!

Match Reporter:
Angus