A  seventeen strong squad mixture of Reserves, trialists and signed 2008/9 squad players took on a strong Gresford side.

 

Nomads started with our young second team keeper between the posts (and excellently he did too !) Lee Bamber, a trailist and Ben Alston at the back. Craig Davies, Michael Garside, David Nolan, Kieron Quinn and Michael Cronshaw in the middle. Up front was Chris Herbert and another trialist.

 

Nomads had the edge and a few chances were created in a keenly contested first half. Chris might have done better when a loose ball fell to him and the Gresford defence did well to clear a series of corners and crosses. Michael Cronshaw got wide to put in some decent low passes and from one, Garside was unlucky when his shot which had beaten the keeper was deflected over. BUT, the real talking point of the half was provided by the man in Black. The match was more like a cup tie than a pre season affair and the tackles from our former charges were just as keen as we had demanded from them last year. Lee Bamber had just taken a crunching tackle near the half way line when he had to double back and had to dive in to stop Jon Taylor. A foul it was, possibly even a yellow card from an over-fussy ref in a league game, but here in a pre season friendly this ref chose to show Red . No one quite believed it. We were allowed to make up the numbers after a token five minutes and Gary Pinch came on.

 

The second half saw us line up with the young keeper again, Alston, Herbert, trialist and Gary Pinch at the back. Davies, Quinn, Danny Forde and Danny Pinch in the middle and Liam Craddock and the trialist up front.

 

We were dominant and Davies got through the defence with neat footwork on several occassions only for defenders to crowd him out before the final ball. When Gresford attacked we coped well and only when Lee Phelan got past and crossed were we in danger but the keeper handled very well under pressure. Mid way through the half the Danny's Forde and Pinch combined to lay the ball in front of the trialist forward who took aim and curled home the evenings only goal, it was almost an equal to Aden effort at Atherton and deserved to win any game. Time ran down without further incident.

 

On the night several players did themselves favours. The keeper elevated himself up the pecking order at the club with a first rate display, Michael Cronshaw was strong and pacy, Craig Davies did well and we got the usual solid displays from Forde, both Pinch's and Alston.