Nantwich Town suffered Boxing Day blues when they went down 2-0 away at Cheshire rivals Witton Albion.
The Dabbers were not helped by a controversial red card for striker Callum Saunders.
Paddy Kennedy was unavailable but was replaced by Perry Bircumshaw, while Saunders came in for Byron Harrison.
Witton took the lead with their first shot of the game on eight minutes.
It came from Nick Hepple, who had only signed for the Albion on Christmas Eve.
He let fly from the edge of the box and a deflection took it past Ben Garratt to mark his debut in style.
The hosts made it 2-0 on 18 minutes.
The Dabbers were cut to shreds by Witton’s directness again as Joel Bailey finished off a flowing move.
There was almost a third goal a couple of minutes later as a shot was flashed wide of Garratt’s far corner.
The Dabbers keeper had to parry away another effort as the onslaught began to subside slightly.
Nantwich manager Jon Moran made a tactical switch with Nathan Sandison sacrificed for Byron Harrison.
A couple of half openings appeared for Nantwich as the change steadied the ship, one for Tom Pratt just got away from him.
Then just before half time the mountain to climb was made even steeper as Nantwich were reduced to 10-men.
A ball looped towards the back post was claimed by Louie Fallon, who was caught by Saunders.
Referee Barry Lamb barrelled straight in with a straight red.
Replays show a high point of contact on the goalkeeper’s leg, although Saunders’ foot was dragged higher than where it started due to the movement of the keeper across him.
The red card galvanised the team, but the Dabbers were the better side in the second half with a player less.
Pratt dragged a shot wide early on from the away side’s most coherent move of the game.
A flurry of half chances came Witton’s way, one a free kick that Garratt pushed away, another a shot from Adam Watson which Garratt parried at a narrow angle.
Harrison slid in to try and turn a set piece towards goal but couldn’t make contact.
An end-to-end period saw Kelvin Mellor not quite able to bring down a decent cross, before Witton broke and ended up blasting over the bar from a promising position.
Kai Evans saw an on target effort headed away, before Matty Tweedley drove a shot into a crowd of bodies.
It’s now four away games without a win for Nantwich, and it was only the third time since Moran became manager that the Dabbers have failed to score.
And the winless run on Boxing Day now stretches to five years.
But 2024 has been a positive year in the league, with Nantwich earning 75 points from 41 league games.
(Report by Liam Price, pics by Jonathan White)
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