Alderley Women's 1st team went down to a last minute penalty corner, 1-0 at home against struggling Cannock.
Edge were missing a few key players and failed to find much fluidity in a very scrappy game.
Misplaced passes and midfield turnovers by both sides made it hard to watch with few chances created and only a couple of penalty corners awarded in the whole match.
Despite some strong runs from midfield by Caitlin Polley and speedy breaks by Lara Tabachnik and Lottie Wright, Edge lacked penetration in the circle and too many final passes went astray or were intercepted by a stout hard-tackling Cannock defence.
A rare late entry in to the Alderley D saw Cannock gain a penalty corner and grab the winner. A game Edge will feel they should have won. The women play next away at Fylde on 9th November and will be looking to return to winning ways.
Alderley Edge Men's I'st team played hosts to top of the league Deeside Ramblers on Saturday. Alderley began the National League Conference north encounter the stronger of the two sides, passing the ball round crisply with ben Gregory going close to scoring.
The deadlock was broken after 8 minutes when a rare cross field lofted through ball from Ben Gregory found it's was to Edge striker James Warburton, who took the ball into the D and cooly fired it past the Deeside keeper. 1-0 to Alderley.
Alderley continued to create chances on the break and with more clinical finishing , could have added to the lead. Eventually Deeside managed to win a penalty corner and drew level through Ali Ghazanfar. Deeside were awarded another penalty corner before half time and Bart Ryan-Beswick converted it making the score 2-1 to Deeside. A harsh scoreline as Alderley had been the better side in the first half.
Another well worked penalty corner on 43 minutes saw Deeside extend their lead to 3-1. Alderley began to take greater control of the game as it went on and fashioned several chances, but a second goal continued to elude them. Eventually the Alderley pressure began to tell and scored from a well worked penalty corner, Oli Jones providing the finishing touch. 3-2 down with all to play for.
Alderley continued to press for an equaliser, with Deeside now playing very deep and looking to sneak a corner/ goal on the breakaway, though between Chris Cook and rob Trem they kept them at bay.
Dom Graham managed to win a corner with the last touch of the game. A final chance for Alderley to get what would have been a well-deserved point from the game. However, the routine was read by Deeside and Alderley ended up losing 3-2.
A disappointing result for the Edge, but a much improved performance from last week. Alderley were the better side against the top side in the league, so plenty of positives to take from the game.
Alderley Men are next in action at home against against Doncaster on Sunday 10th November, 2pm pushback.
Match report by Kelvin Briggs.
