Warrington Rylands 2-0 Bamber Bridge

Warrington Rylands 2-0 Bamber Bridge

Northern Premier League

Tuesday 23rd August 2022

It wasn't that long ago that Warrington had zero teams in the upper echelons of England's non-league pyramid.

Warrington Town only joined the Northern Premier League in the 2000s when all the restructuring happened, whereas Warrington Rylands were nothing more than a park team up until just a few years back when a combination of big investment and big ambition sent them on a quick upwards trajectory to ‘Step 3’ for this season (the highest level they’ve ever been at).

It’ll be some occasion for the town when the two teams go head-to-head in a fortnight as both clubs harbour hopes of climbing into the National League North at some point in the future.

Rylands have significantly strengthened their squad with several players boasting Football League experience joining them for their maiden campaign at Northern Premier League (Premier Division) level. Their skipper is Dean Furman who played internationally for South Africa, Jordan Mustoe; ex-Accrington and later to play abroad in Finland, Belgium and Romania is also at Gorsey Lane right now, as is Jak McCourt who was in his second spell at Chesterfield up to only last season.

Probably their two most household names; Kevin Ellison (does he need an introduction?) and Paddy Lacey (star of the latest Undr The Cosh podcast) didn’t feature in this game where they got their first three points of the season by beating an ordinary but organised Bamber Bridge outfit.

If Felix Goddard (the away 'keeper) is reading this though, he might want to click on the little ‘X’ in the top corner and close the article now because it was his two howler's which ultimately cost his team a point.

Felix certainly wasn't 'the cat' in goalkeeping terms!

Bamber Bridge also boast a couple of names who’ve appeared in the Football League. David Perkins (ex-Barnsley) is one, with another being former Fleetwood promotion specialist Nathan Pond and after a tightly contested first 45 minutes, the big defender produced a goal-saving block to prevent a Rylands attacker from making it 1-0 who broke through, rounded the ‘keeper and was about to slot the ball into an empty net.

It was brilliant defending by Pond in that instance although both teams were generally okay at the back.

Rylands seemed to be running out of ideas going forward which is probably why David Webb (no, not the former Chelsea manager) replaced Callum Dolan midway through the second period, whereas up at the other end, Bamber Bridge showed more ideas but couldn’t find any real inroads due to how organised Rylands were.

A 0-0 stalemate was looking likely until Bamber Bridge’s very own Massimo Taibi had other ideas!

When Webb let fly with a low shot from the edge of the box on 73 minutes, it should have been routine for the ‘keeper yet somehow, instead of keeping the ball out, he let it squirm beneath his legs and into the back of the net. It was a proper ‘howler’ and not long afterwards, McCourt found the net in exactly the same way (albeit from a bit further out) which was an even more glaring error - and when ‘keepers make errors, it often costs teams dearly!

Both mistakes bore a striking resemblance to Rob Green’s infamous cock up for England against the USA in the World Cup and Massimo Taibi’s goalkeeping disaster-class for Man United back in the day; cue taunts and tormenting from Rylands fans behind the goal who probably couldn’t believe their eyes (or luck) at what happened. 'Close your legs' was the perfect advice!

With three points on the board and a good bank of experience within their squad, I can't help but feel Rylands will get better and string together a decent set of results at some point. I doubt they'll go up this season (and if they do it'd be a third straight promotion) but they'll possibly take points off teams at the top, upset a few people along the way, and surprise one or two others.

Bamber Bridge will just never, ever want to remember this night!