⚽ Cornwall Football: Blazey chief ‘very proud’ after clinching league title
Blazey chief ‘very proud’ after clinching league title; Mousehole or Saltash? Western League title race reaches thrilling climax; Truro City boss praises ‘magnificent’ players after third straight win
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⬇️ In today’s newsletter ⬇️
🥳 Blazey chief ‘very proud’ after clinching league title
🏆 Mousehole or Saltash? Western League title race reaches thrilling climax
🐯 City boss Wotton praises ‘magnificent’ players after third successive win
💚 Wright’s stoppage-time header gives Argyle priceless victory
👀 What’s on this weekend
Enjoy. 〓〓
🥳 Blazey chief ‘very proud’ after clinching league title
By Gareth Davies at Blaise Park
Boss Phil Lafferty revealed his pride at St Blazey’s efforts across the entire season after they were crowned South West Peninsula League Premier West champions.
The Green and Blacks needed just one point from their final two games to win promotion to Step Five and they duly obliged in the first of those with a 3-2 win against a stubborn Sticker side last night.
In front of a bumper crowd of 345, Blazey opened the scoring through prolific hitman and captain Luke Cloke ten minutes before the break. But Sticker, who made the short trip to Blaise Park second from bottom in the standings, levelled on the stroke half time when a defensive error saw Haiden Chapman strike.
Shortly after the restart, Blazey went in front again through teenage striker Sam Buckley before George Newton’s late header wrapped up all three points. However, Sticker had the final say when substitute Lewis Clapham scored a stunning free-kick.
“I’m very proud and it has been a fantastic effort all season,” Lafferty said, speaking exclusively to Cornwall Sports Media after the final whistle. “Sometimes, to win a league — and I have done it before — you can’t play well every game and can’t be easy on the eye.
“You have to be pure to do that and by training just once a week for an hour, to become a real purists’ side, at this level of football doesn’t really work.
“You have to play the percentages which some people think isn’t very attractive and it doesn’t get you where you want to go. But I can’t fault the boys because that is what they have done all season.
“They are a bit of a Crazy Gang spirit and they totally deserve all the plaudits. When we were down, like we were on Boxing Day to St Austell, they came back and I am just dead proud of them.”
The joyous scenes that greeted the full-time whistle were a far cry from the uncertainty the club seemingly found themselves in during the early weeks of the season when Lafferty decided to replace newly-appointed manager Ryan Fice after just three games.
Lafferty himself decided to once again don his tracksuit in a managerial capacity and along with Andrew Moon and Brad Richardson, who came to the club with Fice but remained in place, they have guided Blazey to the title.
“It was a decision based on risk assessment of where we might go,” he added, when asked about Fice’s departure. “I dare say the decision could have backfired and if I didn’t make the decision, that could have backfired also.
“I thought it was right at the time but once I had made that call, from that moment onwards, the two lads that remained here have been genuine and loyal to this football club.”
Along with Moon and Richardson, Lafferty will now lead St Blazey into the Western League Premier Division and although determined to revel in his side’s glory, the Green and Blacks’ chief admitted the club has much work to do, in order to prepare themselves for promotion.
He said: “Some of the teams, if not all, that have gone from the South West Peninsula to Step Five, haven’t done it within one or two years of a management team being put in place.
“We are a bit ahead of the curve so I’m nervously excited about what this club can achieve at this level. That’s because we have fast tracked our way up opposed to being a five-, six-, seven-year build.
“Some of the other promoted clubs have got things in place behind the scenes and we really need to pull our socks up because there are some things that need addressing, to give us that platform to deliver at Step Five.
“It doesn’t have to happen instantly, or be an overnight success, but it depends how ambitious this club wants to be, where it wants to go and how soon it wants to get there.”
Finally, Lafferty paid tribute to club stalwarts such as President Amos Putt and vice-chairman Paul Bowden who are the very fabric of St Blazey and have been constants throughout the most recent spell in the club’s history which has seen many dark days.
They included relegation to Step Seven in 2017, along with the sackings of previous managers Matt Hayden and Shaun Vincent, with the very public fall out from their departures.
However, Lafferty was appointed in February 2021 and after a season of consolidation last term, St Blazey finally have silverware residing in the Blaise Park trophy cabinet after a near two-decade wait.
“The likes of Amos and Paul, they are always here, at away games, at committee meetings and on the pitch when it’s raining,” Lafferty enthused. “They are everywhere and their support is incredible.
“I’m sure this title means everything to them and they have more of an attachment to this club than I have. So if I am happy and elated, then what the hell do they feel?
“I’m pleased for them, particularly Amos as it has been 17 years for a trophy. That is a long time to wait for what people keep telling me is a big football club.
“Big football clubs don’t go 17 years without a trophy and you have to come back to re announce yourself as a big football club after a wait like that. That’s why I say, does this club want to go on and build itself like it did under Trevor Mewton, or does it just want to stumble into Step Five.
“I’m not sure I know the answer to that yet.”
🏆 Mousehole or Saltash? Western League title race reaches thrilling climax
By Matt Friday
It is set to be a nailbiting couple of days as the Western League Premier Division title race enters the final furlong. We know the trophy is heading to Cornwall for the first time since 2008 — but which end is it heading to?
In the west we have Mousehole, the current leaders who have their destiny firmly in their own hands; and in the east are second-placed Saltash United, who are hoping for favours elsewhere to snatch the trophy at the death.
The Seagulls are one win away from the title and promotion to the Southern League Premier South for the first time, but could be crowned champions as early as tonight if Saltash fail to win at Ashton & Backwell United (kick-off 7.45pm).
Should the Ashes get the job done tonight then it will all come down to Saturday, when a win for Mousehole at home to Wellington will be enough to seal a third promotion in just five years. Failure to win, however, will open the door to Saltash if they can defeat Shepton Mallet at their Waterways Stadium home.
“I would love [to win it on Thursday],” Mousehole chief Jake Ash told Cornwall Sports Media, “but if we don’t get it and we have to wait until Saturday then that’s not the end of the world, it’d be great to do that together as a group on Saturday.
“We want to win the league so if it’s tonight we’d be delighted, but we can’t control what happens and I expect Saltash to go and win tonight, so then it falls on us going and winning on Saturday. The focus is on then, there’s no point wasting too much energy on stuff that you can’t control.
“Of coure we’ll be keeping an eye on [the game tonight], but we’re not going up there to watch it or getting together as a group in the hope that it happens, we’re just focused on Saturday.”
Mousehole have already passed up one chance to secure the title when they failed to win at Bridgwater United on Tuesday night. A surprise defeat for the Ashes at Clevedon Town on Saturday meant a win for the Seagulls at Fairfax Park would clinch the championship.
But the Somerset outfit hadn’t read the script and were two goals up by 62 minutes with Jacob Spence twice heading past Mousehole custodian Ollie Chenoweth. Staring down the barrel of an untimely defeat, Ash’s side rallied late on with Andrew Elcock’s excellent strike in the 88th minute halving the deficit before Josh Bissett rescued a point deep into stoppage-time.
“[I felt] real pride in how the players went in the last 20 minutes,” Ash said. “They wanted to go there and win the league on Tuesday, and I think when you’re 2-0 down with 20 minutes to go and the realisation sinks in that it’s probably not going to happen, it’d be really easy to go into self-preservation mode when you look after your legs with a thought to Saturday.
“But we went really bold and went for it and had a lot of attacking players on at the end of the game and I’m so confident that if the game had gone on five more minutes we’d have won it. Jack Bray-Evans had a half-chance and the goalie made a save with his legs — if the ball went a yard either side, it’s all over on Tuesday night, which would have been incredible.
“[Seagulls coach] Jack Greenwood said after the game that if you’d gone 2-0 down and rescued a point in December you’d have come back on the bus absolutely overjoyed. We always try and put things into context of the season and realistically it’s a great point against a difficult team to play against.”
They’re not quite there yet, but the Seagulls are just 90 minutes away — whether that’s tonight or on Saturday — from becoming the first Cornish team since Truro City to lift the Western League trophy and only the second Duchy side after the White Tigers to earn promotion to the Southern League.
This potential achievement would be the latest landmark in the remarkable history of Mousehole AFC, who were playing Combination League football as recently as 2007 and only earned promotion to the South West Peninsula League Premier West in 2019.
Their Western League bow then followed when, ironically, they welcomed Wellington to Trungle Parc on the opening day of the 2021/22 season, and there would be a pleasing sense of symmetry for the Seagulls faithful if this weekend’s visit of the Tangerines was to be Mousehole’s last match in the division.
There is work to do yet if that is to become a reality, but Ash and his side are determined to get the job done and make Saturday another day to remember for those at the club who have been involved since the very beginning.
“It’ll be an unbelievable achievement for the football club,” he said. “To think that they were playing in the Combination League 16 years ago to potentially going to be the second club from the county to play Southern League football — a little sleepy, fishing village right in the west of Cornwall — is quite amazing.
“But when you see the progress the club have made off the pitch with the ground and how that’s improved and the work that they do with the campsite to help make the club sustainable, it’s an incredible model.
“It’s so nice that the people that are involved behind the scenes have been there for so long and there’s never been a financial investor that’s come in and pushed people out of the club and you’ve lost that feel, that heart that maybe happened when I was at Truro.
“You lost some of those people that knew the club inside-out and maybe felt disenfranchised from it because of ownership at the top, but it’s never been the case at Mousehole and I really hope on Saturday that we give those special people an opportunity to celebrate something that would be an unbelievable achievement.”
‘All we can do is our job’ — Ashes chief Lewis
Ashes boss Danny Lewis is focusing firmly on his own side’s prospects ahead of a defining couple of days for his team.
The east Cornwall outfit are in the unenviable position in the title race of having to rely on results elsewhere if they want to be crowned champions, with a surprise 2-1 defeat at Clevedon Town last Saturday striking a damaging, but not decisive, blow to their title aspirations.
Mousehole’s 2-2 draw in Somerset means the Ashes’ hopes are still alive, and although the need to win two games inside 48 hours doesn’t make their task any easier, Lewis and co are determined to give it their all regardless of the outcome.
“I have been a little bit frustrated with the fact that it’s been very stop-start,” Lewis told Cornwall Sports Media. “We were at home to Barnstaple and home to Bridgwater and we were excellent and then we had a ten-day gap and I just had the feeling on Saturday [that we might slip up] — we were short, we looked a bit tired and I can’t have any complaints [with the result].
“Obviously, Mousehole dropped points [on Tuesday] night, but all we can do is our job. As long as we take care of ourselves we can at least end the season with pride and know that we’ve done as well as we possibly can.
“All I’ve told my players is I just want them turning up to every game at it and then that will take us to wherever it takes us, and if it takes us to the title, great, and if it takes us to the play-off then it’s another challenge, another obstacle in our way.”
The Ashes’ first task is the unfamiliar feeling of a Thursday evening trip to Ashton & Backwell United, whose own fixture backlog saw them face — and defeat — Ilfracombe Town on Tuesday night.
Saltash know that they must return from Bristol with all three points to take the title race right down to the wire, and Lewis is fully aware that the result is all that matters.
“I’ve played at our level and around it now for many years and every time I’ve had a title race it’s about just turning up [and knowing] you’ve got to get the job done,” he said. “It’s irrelevant how, it’s just about turning up and making sure you do what you can to win the game.
“It doesn’t have to be pretty, it’s just about turning up and being as efficient as you can just to get over the line. Again, it is frustrating how our fixtures have been dragged out for the last month and all of a sudden we’re playing Thursday to Saturday. However, it’s not only us, everyone’s in the same predicament.”
Although his side are second-favourites in the title race, lifting the trophy would be a very fitting way for Lewis to end his first season as sole manager of the east Cornwall club.
It has been a season of upheaval for the Ashes, with Lewis and Shane Krac replacing former boss Dane Bunney in the summer of 2022, only for Krac to resign from his role in December, leaving Lewis in sole charge of the Waterways Stadium outfit.
But despite the off-field uncertainty, performances went from strength to strength on it as the Ashes won nine and drew one of their ten games prior to Saturday’s reverse at Clevedon.
That run has seen the Ashes clinch second spot and a promotion play-off against a Step 4 team at the very least, and Lewis is now facing the possibility of guiding his side to a first league title since 1989.
“I’ve learned so much about management in the last year and I’ve enjoyed a lot of it,” he said.” I’ve found certain aspects a challenge, but for me as a player who has played a lot of games for the club, who has a lot of feeling for the club and a lot of friends here, for me it would mean an awful lot to lift that title.
“But again, I just don’t want to be in the position on the weekend to look at it as a ‘what if’ environment and just an environment of what could have been.
“We’ll just try to make sure that on Saturday what we’re not doing is coming off the pitch kicking ourselves saying we weren’t in that position to capitalise on Mousehole slipping up.”
🐯 Wotton praises ‘magnificent’ players after third successive win
By Tom Harris at Bolitho Park
Truro City manager Paul Wotton was delighted to witness his side secure a ‘comfortable’ three points as they cruised to a 4-0 victory over Salisbury at Bolitho Park on Wednesday night.
Strikes from Dan Sullivan, Tyler Harvey, Will Dean and Harvey Greenslade sealed the routine win for the White Tigers in what was their third league game in five days.
The success moved Truro up to second in the Southern League Premier South table and confirmed that they will have home advantage for the play-off semi-final on Wednesday, April 26 where they will take on Poole Town or Chesham United.
Wotton's side dominated the early proceedings on a bright but crisp evening in Plymouth and took the lead with 29 minutes played through Sullivan. Following a move down the right flank, Harvey whipped a fierce ball into the area, and there was Sullivan, unmarked six yards from goal to tap into a vacant net.
It was nearly an instant response from the Wiltshire visitors who hit the bar just two minutes later. The home side could only clear a free kick as far as Nassim Kherbouche and the centre-back expertly took the ball down and fired a drive goalward, but saw his effort ricochet off an outstretched Harvey leg and onto the bar.
The returning Harvey got the goal his first-half efforts had merited on the 33-minute mark. James Hamon’s direct clearance was well taken down by Greenslade who fed Sullivan and the goalscorer turned provider on this occasion, threading a neat pass through to Harvey who had the composure to roll the ball into the far corner.
After the interval, Wotton’s side continued to pepper the Salisbury goal with Dean notching their third goal five minutes after the restart when he rose highest from a Ryan Brett delivery to nod home.
With 57 minutes played, Bristol Rovers loanee Greenslade capped off the scoring with a deft header from a Dean delivery to wrap up a straight-forward three points for Truro.
Speaking to Cornwall Sports Media after the game, Paul Wotton said: “It was pretty comfortable on the night without really having to exert ourselves, it was welcome because it was obviously our third game in five days.
“The Met Police and the Bracknell games were two really hard shifts so to have a more comfortable night tonight was very pleasing.
“[The players have] been magnificent, their fitness levels have been different class. They’ve coped with it really well, they recover well, they are a great set of lads. They’re really tired now and they have every right to be. We have another game on Saturday, it’s pretty relentless and we go again.”
Wotton also highlighted the importance of heading into the play-offs in a run of form, with his side picking up three wins in a row in the league.
“You’d rather go into it [in form] than stutter into it having lost your previous games,” he began. “I have been involved in play-off games a few times, they have got a bit of a mixed bag in them.
“Sometimes I think you are better off being in form — but they are cup finals, they are one-off games whether you are home or away, it can hinge on a mistake, a refereeing decision or a bit of magic so they are tough games to play in whether you are in form or not.”
City play their final league game of the season away to Oxfordshire side North Leigh this Saturday.
City: Hamon, Craske, Riley-Lowe, Palmer, Dean, T Harvey, Sullivan, Brett, White, Greenslade, Egan. Subs (unused): C Harvey, Neal.
💚 Wright’s stoppage-time header gives Argyle priceless victory
They never said it would be easy. If Plymouth Argyle go on to secure promotion to the Championship at the end of this season they will look back on Tuesday night as a pivotal moment.
With the clock ticking into the 96th minute at Shrewsbury’s New Meadow, it looked as if Argyle would have to settle for just a point — a single point that would have seen them slip out of the automatic promotion places. Enter Callum Wright.
The 61st-minute substitute launched himself at a Macaulay Gillesphey cross and watched his header kiss the back of the net to snatch victory right at the death to keep Argyle at the League One summit.
The Pilgrims now require a maximum of eight points from their last four games to clinch promotion…
⚽ Down: Moments after Finn Azaz is denied a penalty, Shrewsbury go up the other end and take the lead with Killian Phillips breaking the offside trap to lash a terrific finish into the top corner. 1-0 (53’)
⚽ Leveller: Argyle are back on terms and have Niall Ennis to thank, with the forward doing brilliantly to regain and retain possession in the corner before delivering a sublime cross for Joe Edwards to nod in at the back post. 1-1 (68’)
⚽ Unbelievable: Would you believe it?! With five of seven additional minutes elapsed, Gillesphey’s cross is nodded in by Wright at the back post to spark pandemonium amongst the Green Army! 1-2 (90+6’)
Argyle: Burton, Gillesphey, Houghton, Wilson, Scarr (Earley 56), Butcher (Matete 73), Edwards, Ennis, Cosgrove (Hardie HT), Azaz (C Wright 61), Galloway (Mayor HT). Subs (unused): Parkes, Randell.
“It's just like a rollercoaster, isn't it? This game's going to be the death of me, but it's brilliant.
“We got over the line: that's the most important thing. It's exciting. We're buzzing to be in the mix with it all. We're sitting on top of the league and it's in our hands.
“[The Green Army] have seen their team tonight put in 100 per cent effort against a stubborn team that were difficult to break down, but we kept going.
“So many of them here tonight on a Tuesday, having to travel back wherever they're going, all over the country, but they’ll go home happy. They’ve seen another massive three points, and to do it in the last minute away from home - it doesn't get much better than that.”
No change among the top three with Ipswich Town and Sheffield Wednesday also recording victories against Port Vale and Bristol Rovers respectively, but Barnsley’s automatic promotion hopes are hanging by a thread after they were held to a goalless draw at Lincoln City.…
📈 The top of League One:
Plymouth Argyle, 89pts
Ipswich Town, 88pts
—————————————Sheffield Wednesday, 87pts
Barnsley, 82pts
Peterborough United, 73pts
Bolton Wanderers, 72pts
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👀 What’s on this week
⚽️League One: Saturday, 3pm: Plymouth Argyle v Cambridge United.
⚽️Southern League Premier South: Saturday, 3pm: North Leigh v Truro City.
⚽️Western League Premier Division: Thursday, 7.45pm: Ashton & Backwell United v Saltash United. Saturday, 3pm: Cadbury Heath v Millbrook; Falmouth Town v Sherborne Town; Keynsham Town v Helston Athletic; Mousehole v Wellington; Saltash United v Shepton Mallet; Torpoint Athletic v Ilfracombe Town.
⚽️South West Peninsula League Premier West: Saturday, 3pm: Bodmin Town v Newquay; Callington Town v Penzance; Dobwalls v Bude Town; Launceston v Sticker; Liskeard Athletic v Camelford; St Blazey v Wendron United; St Dennis v Mullion.
🏆St Piran League Cup semi-final: Saturday, 3pm: Illogan RBL v St Dominick (at St Austell).
🏆Cornwall Women’s Cup final: Friday, 7.30pm: Helston Athletic v Liskeard Athletic (at St Austell).
⚽️FA Women’s National League Division One South West: Sunday, 2pm: St Austell v Moneyfields.
⚽️South West Regional Women’s Football League Premier Division: Sunday, 2pm: Warminster Town v Liskeard Athletic.
⚽️South West Regional Women’s Football League Western Division: Sunday, 2pm: Saltash United v Sticker.
See you on Monday!
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