The Road To Lostock Gralam

Rudheath Social  2  Styal  3

Cheshire Football League – Premier Division

Tapas Night at the Slow & Easy sounds a real belter, the chef is called Jesus!

It was while I was stood taking advantage of the facilities that my eyes were taken by the poster on the wall of the pub on Manchester Road in Lostock Gralam, a venue that I frequented on more than one occasion back in the Summer of 1994.

Slow & Easy - From The Rear..........

I had just graduated from Keele University and for a very brief period I was acquainted with a girl who lived in Northwich, so as a result I spent quite a bit of time touring the highways, byways and public houses of the Vale Royal area.

Lach Dennis, Davenham, Cuddington, Delamere and Whitegate were all places that got a visit, but the Slow & Easy was one of the more popular venues, and it was while sat in the pub all of those years ago that I came up with one of my more bizarre post-student ideas.

“The Road To Lostock Gralam” – It was to be the first novel of my fledgling writing career. At that stage I had no idea what it would be about, but the name sounded good! Let’s be fair though, I was a pretentious young English graduate, and my concept of reality was akin to that of a schizophrenic on acid. It was never going to happen, and it didn’t.

That said, over the past 23 years, as I’ve passed Lostock Gralam on the way to either the homes of Witton Albion or Northwich Victoria, it always raises a smile, as does any random reference to the village, irrespective of the context.

Park Stadium - Home Of The 'Grey Lambs' (Get It?)

My road to Lostock Gralam in 2017 was a somewhat inadvertent one, it was an unfortunate set of political circumstances that lead to a re-visit to the Slow & Easy, and of course the football ground that sits right behind it.

Rudheath Social Football Club were only formed in 1993 and quickly rose from Sunday football into Saturday’s before they eventually worked their way up to the top flight of the Cheshire Football League. They played their home games at Griffiths Park, to the rear of the social club on Middlewich Road in Rudheath, but then the landlords imposed a significant increase in the rent, which meant the club were forced to find a new home, and that’s where Lostock Gralam FC came into the equation.

It’s not been the happiest of seasons for either Rudheath or tonight’s opponents Styal, and as a consequence tonight’s game was crucial. If Styal won, they would move to third from bottom, leaping over Rudheath, but then with Styal having finished their games, Rudheath would need a point from their remaining two games after tonight to escape the final relegation place.

In other words, Rudheath have still got an escape route, for Styal it was win or bust!

Seventies Gold

After a typically arduous journey up the M6, I finally pulled into the car park to the rear of the Slow & Easy. What I found was a lovely football ground in a really nice setting. A brand new Football Foundation funded changing facility sat in a corner while in contrast a small stand that looked to emanate from the seventies sat in the opposite corner. There wasn’t any hard standing but on one side were some grass mounds that provided an elevated viewing position. The ground is beautifully tree lined and clearly well looked after. On a glorious May evening it looked a real picture, the kind of place you would be happy to watch football at, well done to all at Lostock Gralam FC and Rudheath Social FC.

The game was an exciting one, the impressive Callum Whelan scored in the first half to give the fired up visitors the lead, and then the same player scored a cracking second goal just after half time when he fired home from distance.  Whelan scored his hat-trick goal with a well placed low shot from the edge of the box in the 60^th minute and you felt at that stage the game was over, but clearly rattled Rudheath had other ideas.

Quick fire goals from Anthony Marshall and Steven Warburton meant that last twenty minutes were going to be tense. Styal had to dig deep and Rudheath began to get frustrated, this boiled over when substitute Sam Didsbury was dismissed for two yellow cards, both for dissent, inside 30 seconds of each other. He’d only been on the pitch seven minutes.

Styal held, on, survival is also on, but it is totally dependant on how Rudheath perform in games against Rylands and bottom placed Garswood. As I said, a point would be enough to get them out of it.

Perhaps next time Rudheath are on the road to Lostock Gralam, they should call into the pub and grab some tapas. A few words with the chef might lead to some divine intervention. I reckon there might be a book in that somewhere……..

Where Jesus Does Albondigas