Match Report: Cheadle Town 3-6 Tranmere Rovers

Cole Stockton's quick-fire first half hat-trick helps Rovers to progress in the Cheshire Senior Cup against Cheadle Town....

Cheadle Town   3 - 6   Tranmere Rovers 

On a cold and wet evening in Greater Manchester, Tranmere went goal crazy to ease past North West Counties side Cheadle Town in the Cheshire Senior Cup on Tuesday night.

The game, which was the only Cheshire Senior Cup game scheduled for Tuesday night that actually went ahead due the weather problems, had been in doubt for most of the day although the pitch did pass a Tuesday lunchtime inspection.  On arrival at the Park Road Stadium, the pitch was looking heavy and was certainly the most diffcult pitch I've seen Rovers play on in quite a long time.

Rovers had the following starting line-up...

Turner

Duggan    Sutton     Riley     Hunter

Kirby     Askew     Jago     L.Davies

Stockton     Margetts

A relatively experienced Rovers side were at their hosts from the off and Johnny Margetts found himself through one-on-one with the Town goalkeeper but shot tamely into the Keepers hand before another ball over the top which again caught in the mud saw Margetts through again but the chance failed to produce a goal.

The hosts had a chance of their own when an excellent long range strike was deflected wide of Iain Turner's goal for a corner.  The corner came to nothing but Rovers were soon in front when Margetts chased a ball down the right touchline and crossed for Cole Stockton who initially saw the ball stick in the mud at his feet but eventually prodded the ball over the line.

Just a matter of minutes later it was 2-0 when a mix-up between the Cheadle goalkeeper and defender allowed Stockton through to walk the ball into an open goal and the fans in attendance barely had time to applaud or commiserate before Jake Kirby made it 3-0 with the best goal of the game, firing in from the edge of the penalty area - no deflection needed this time unlike his Barrow goal at the weekend!

The goalscoring was intense at this point and Rovers made it three goals in the space of five minutes when Cole Stockton netted his hat-trick inside 25 minutes to make it 4-0 to Rovers - a scoreline which then remained until the half-time break.

Cole Stockton scored a quick fire-first half hat-trick at Cheadle

The early part of the second half saw a drought of goals compared to the first half but eventually a goal was witnessed and again it went to Rovers who saw defender Martin Riley head in from a free-kick on the left hand side to make it 5-0 to the visitors.  Just two minutes later though there was to be a goal to the home side as Turner went for a ball down low but saw the ball bobble in the mud and over his head to make it 5-1.

Tranmere then began to make changes to the side with some of the Youth players entering the game as Ben Jago was replaced by Tolani Omotola and then Jake Hulley replaced Mitch Duggan at right-back.  After Cole Stockton thought he'd made it 6-1 as he had the ball in the net but offside was given, the home side scored another to make it 5-2 instead.

Kevin Cringle then replaced Daren Askew in central midfield for Rovers' final substitution before Ritchie Sutton finished well at the far post to make it 6-2 to Tranmere!  A goal-packed match finished with Cheadle adding a third goal from a superb free-kick around 25 yards out that gave Turner no chance but that was where the scoring ended and Rovers progress to the second round of the competition with the draw yet to be made.

Tranmere Man of the Match:  Cole Stockton - an all round decent team performance but for his hat-trick of goals and numerous other chances he also had, it's Cole who gets the Man of the Match with an honourable mention to Jake Kirby who also had a great game.