Another beautiful Autumn morning, and Mellor's Barmy Army travelled to Timperley, where the pre match coffee and chat about Simons "personal grooming” barely masked everyones nerves about the game that lay ahead.

Yes, Timperley sneaked the first encounter, but Coach Howie had his boys dead set on revenge, and what a battled ensued.

Timperley opened the scoring, but were soon pegged back by a length of the pitch team effort, Robbie winning ground ball, Ollie on the break, up to Sammy, who finished well. A further team effort led to Miles P converting a Finn feed, and Mellor 2-1 up at quarter time.

Mellor were battling extremely hard, the defence was solid, and suffocating Timperley's mostly individual efforts. The midfield fought for and won ground ball aplenty, leading to two goals from Charlie, the second assisted by Miles Q. Timperley had a lot of shots, some wide, the others saved by Frederick, and just the one from Timperley, gave us a 4-2 half time lead.

More great defence, and saves from Frederick in Q3, meant Timperley's only goal was when the ball got checked out of a Timperley stick, and dribbled across the line, but Mellor added 3, Miles Q and a Finn brace left us 7-3 up.

We were playing on a full size pitch, and did we have enough left to hang on after the huge efforts from each and every boy… the clock was running down, but so were we, Timperley had all the possession and scored three to narrow to 7-6. Then Finn went to the bin, so we were man down and Timperley sensed their equaliser. But a last superhuman defensive effort broke up the attack, and fast break practice paid off with Sammy finishing well and a two goal margin again. Timperley got one back but it was all over at 8-7 for Mellor.

The deciding factor was undoubtedly our superior team play, brilliantly coached by John too.

There is no man of the match when "the team" plays this well, although a special mention to Theo, who is fast becoming our midfield “hoover”, both at the face and in the loose - great stuff everyone.

Sammy 2
Charlie 2, 1 assist
Finn 2, 1 assist
Miles P 1
Miles Q 1, 1 assist