Nantwich Town were beaten by an 89th minute Clitheroe winner in their first match on the new Swansway Stadium 3G artificial pitch.
More than 460 fans watched on as the Dabbers fell to a 2-1 defeat in an entertaining encounter.
Ahmed Ali had a couple of early chances, the first saved by Hakan Burton in the Clitheroe goal and the next from the resulting corner straight at the keeper.
Byron Harrison forced a better save from Burton after being found by a lovely dinked through ball by Kai Evans, then Steven Hewitt fired wide from close range on the rebound.
The visitors started to grow into things, a low cross saw a Clitheroe player fling himself at it and flick it wide, an effort that could have gone anywhere.
Nathan Okome and Troy Bourne were given a torrid time by the huge figure of Sefton Gonzales for Clitheroe, and that provided half a chance for Domaine Rouse as Okome miscued a clearance.
Harrison headed wide just short of the half hour as both sides continued to trade blows, and another shot was hit straight at Burton.
Clitheroe’s best chance of the first half came from an attack down the right, Veron Parry and Jacob Hansen combining and Hansen shooting narrowly over while under good pressure from the Nantwich defence.
The visitors had started to show their quality and took a deserved lead in the 51st minute, Reece Webb-Foster finding the corner on the second attempt.
Okome was beaten all ends up on the left wing in the build up, a real rarity since he joined the Dabbers, but credit must go to Clitheroe for how they went toe-to-toe with the Nantwich defence.
Scott Butler, in his first league start for Nantwich, was impressive in carrying the ball out from his centre-back spot and even ventured close enough to have a shot, which flew over the crossbar.
Joel Connolly stooped low to try and headed an Ahmed Ali cross towards goal but saw it deflected over for a corner.
The game looked as if it was fizzling out until the last 10 minutes.
But then, in the 82nd, a Dabbers counter saw a big overload and AJ Leitch-Smith squandered the opportunity as he could only hit at Burton in a decent amount of space in the box.
In the 83rd minute, the equaliser came in remarkable fashion.
Sean Cooke caught everyone out with an ingenious quick free kick that found the far corner as Burton was trying to organise his wall.
The ball was not moving, so the referee allowed it.
But just six minutes later, and Clitheroe struck the winner.
A quick counter-attack was finished off by John McGrath off the bench to win it for the visitors.
It was a poor goal for Nantwich to concede as McGrath had most of the artificial pitch to himself to score it as Nantwich looked to complete the comeback.
The Dabbers will look to get this out their system quickly with a game at 1874 Northwich on Bank Holiday Monday.
(Pics by Peter Robinson)
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