By Liam Price, photos by Jonathan White
Nantwich Town succumbed to another damaging defeat as Clitheroe won 2-1 at the Swansway Stadium.
Joel Connolly made his first start since Hanley Town away on 20th August after a combination of mostly injury and some time on the bench. Callum Saunders also started, with Kofi Moore and Joe Robbins the two to make way from last week’s loss at Stalybridge.
Jack McEvilly saw a header cleared almost off the line from an early Clitheroe corner.
Dylan Dwyer flashed a shot wide as the away side signalled their intent by playing their full backs very high up the pitch.
Arguably the best Nantwich chance of the first half came inside the first 10 minutes, when James Melhado’s positive run ended with Tom Pratt seeing a shot pushed away by Clitheroe keeper Liam Isherwood, either side of him and in may well have been 1-0.
A Clitheroe free kick was poked over the bar at the back post by that man McEvilly again. How he was able to get onto that ball when being second favourite was something that became relevant again later on.
Connolly showed off the many facets of his game that Nantwich had missed: leadership, battling and distribution too, that latter one in action in picking out Kai Evans who made a mess of his shot.
Leon Creech, who has been in spectacular form for Clitheroe in 2025, had his best chance on the stroke of half time when striking a clean shot wide via a slight deflection, with Garratt not moving. Danny Wilkins curled over the bar from the corner that followed.
In the second half, Clitheroe threatened early on but the pattern of the first half, two teams working hard and competing strongly across all areas of the pitch, looked like it was continuing.
That changed, however, on 56 minutes. A deep cross came off the head of Ben Hockenhull and to the feet of Lenni Cirino. He was in so much space that he was able to take one touch to set himself up and another to curl past Garratt and give the visitors the lead.
Hockenhull had half a chance with a header which went tamely at Isherwood. It came to him in strange circumstances as he’d found himself on the floor from the hurly-burly of the set piece and had to throw himself at the header.
Wilkins very nearly got in on goal just past the hour but an excellent last-ditch challenge from Perry Bircumshaw denied him.
Evans was having a frustrating game in open play, marshalled well by the outstanding Sam Olawumi who was a one-man tackle machine out there and a strong contender for Player of the Match. So it was from a dead ball that Evans came closest to adding to his goals total this season, a free kick that was dropped and caught on the second attempt by Isherwood.
Nothing was clicking in front of goal for Nantwich, as evidenced by a low cross that didn’t result in a meaningful shot due to what must have been some miscommunication as a couple of bodies threw themselves at it.
But that little spell had started to get the crowd into things for the first real time in the game, as they sensed perhaps some momentum building. However, almost as quickly as that appeared it was extinguished as the away side got their second.
Another cross undid the Dabbers. This one was right into the path of Cirino was finished from close range. An excellent ball and a player with the desire to get onto the end of it. Connolly was the closest man to him which says a lot too about the efforts of some around him compared to a man who hadn’t played this much football in 7 months. And it was a damning echo of that chance in the first half that Nantwich did not learn their lesson from.
Two Dabbers subs combined to try and drag a bedraggled team back into it, Kofi Moore crossing for Alex Panter to head wide.
Clitheroe could have made it 3 on the break but Creech was just about held up before he could shoot.
Nantwich did get one back in stoppage time. A ball pumped into the box bounced down to Saunders, who got a bit of luck with a touch off his back but no luck at all with a brilliant second touch to set up a simple finish and his 7th goal of the season.
The Dabbers could still have nabbed a point right at the end. Another deep ball by Garratt saw Hockenhull get his head to it ahead of Isherwood but it dropped wide and with that the game was done as Nantwich’s miserable 2025 showed no sign of stopping.
The next home game for Nantwich Town is against Avro on Saturday 5th April 2025 at 3pm.
Teams
Nantwich Town: Ben Garratt, James Melhado, Perry Bircumshaw, Kelvin Mellor (C), Ben Hockenhull, Joel Connolly, Callum Saunders, Byron Harrison (Alex Panter, 78), Tom Pratt, Kai Evans (Kofi Moore, 77), Matty Tweedley
Subs not used: Joe Robbins, Jon Moran
Goal: Saunders (90+2)
Clitheroe: Liam Isherwood, Jacob Hanson (Jake Connelly, 27), Dylan Dwyer, Ross Dent (C), Jack McEvilly, Cameron Lancaster, Leon Creech, Sam Olawumi, Danny Wilkins (Ntumba Massanka, 70), Jordan Windass (Sean McConville, 79), Lenni Cirino (Luke Gill, 83)
Sub not used: Connor Smith
Goals: Cirino (56, 77)
Attendance: 487