By Liam Price, photo by Jonathan White
The Dabbers’ Cheshire Senior Cup campaign gets underway on Tuesday night (7.45pm kick-off) as we face Ashville for the first time ever in the First Round, looking to go one or two better than last season’s semi-final.
Ashes to Ashville
Ashville are currently 10th in the North West Counties Premier Division North (2 leagues below Nantwich). They’ve got 6 wins and 3 draws from 14 games, but come into this one in a bad spell of form having lost 4 of their last 5 games in all competitions and all of their last 3. Those defeats have been to Bacup, Woolton in the FA Vase and Fulwood Amateurs in the league.
The lottery of cup draws and fixtures mean their last 6 games in a row have been away from home, so Tuesday will be their first home game since 15th September. While this would normally point to a coming upturn in form, they have won only 1 of 8 matches at the Ray Parker Stadium this season, winning 5 from 10 away.
Players to Watch
Up top for Ashville could well be Ben Greenop, who was with the Dabbers briefly at the start of last season and has great scoring pedigree from Sandbach. He has 2 goals in 6 games this season.
Peter Morgan has 6 goals in 15 games and is their top scorer, closely followed by Harrison Denton who has 4 in 11.
Match Information
Tickets are £6 for adults and £3 for concessions.
It’s roughly an hour’s drive up to the Ray Parker Stadium, via the A51 and M53.