Wythenshawe claimed their first ever win in the modern eighth tier of English football with a 2-1 victory over Nantwich at the Swansway Stadium, writes Liam Price.
Jon Moran reached 100 Nantwich appearances, while Joel Connolly joined Troy Bourne, Kai Evans and Perry Bircumshaw on the injury list, with Tom Pratt replacing Connolly.
And the absences of experienced players were acutely missed.
The Ammies started strong and stayed strong throughout the first half. Ben Garratt was forced into early action with a save at his near post.
James Simms fired over after Moran gave the ball away high up, before Garratt had to make a challenge on the edge of his box to stop a Wythenshawe charge. This was the first of many.
The visitors’ positive play was rewarded on 18 minutes when Callum Laird followed in his first effort that was saved by Garratt to roll into the empty net.
Nantwich created nothing from open play in the first half, their two minor openings coming from free kicks.
Cole Lonsdale kicked off a routine that ended with Kelvin Mellor’s cross being cleared away.
Lonsdale went direct next time but could only find the Wythenshawe wall.
Garratt was busy again near the whistle, two bits of good keeping meaning it was only 1-0 at the break.
In the second half, it was largely more of the same.
Garratt was booked for bringing down a Wythenshawe player just outside the box just three minutes into the second period.
The stopper was almost an auxiliary centre back for large parts of this game due to the immobility and poor distribution of defenders ahead of him.
The Dabbers huffed and puffed. A Courtney Meppen-Walters header was deflected wide, the best they mustered up to the hour mark.
The two recent recruits of Kofi Moore and Peter Moore (no relation) were introduced with about half an hour to go to try and inject some momentum into Nantwich’s play.
Meppen-Walters came closer still with another header which was forced away either by Ammies keeper Kyle Haslam or one of the defenders around him.
But just as Nantwich tried to spark into life, Wythenshawe doubled their lead.
Abdullahi Ahmed went round Garratt and scored to delight the travelling supporters.
Nantwich did get on the scoresheet as we went into stoppage time.
Meppen-Walters scored after lashing in on the second attempt from a deep ball into the box.
But it says a lot that the big centre-back was by far Nantwich’s biggest goal-scoring threat.
A last-ditch Lonsdale free kick over the bar snuffed out hopes of anything from the game for Nantwich.
The Dabber must recover quickly for Newcastle Town away on Bank Holiday Monday.
The next home game for Nantwich is against Wythenshawe Town on Saturday 14th September at 3pm.
(Pics by Jonathan White)
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