City of Liverpool (0) 2 Alport (1) 3
An 88th minute penalty from Mike Blundell was enough to wreck City of Liverpool’s perfect home start and record a FIFTH straight away win to take Alport joint top of the Division One table. Blundell’s free-kick separated the sides at the break but Tom Peterson’s pen levelled for the Purples and Andy Fowler capitalised on a rare Danny Read slip to turn the game around for the hosts. But Dean Twigg blasted Alport level from 20 yards with nine minutes to go, before Blundell coolly slotted home from 12 yards after the returning Matty Ashbrook was felled in the box, to stun the bulk of a 471 crowd at the Delta Taxis Stadium.
Twigg rattled the bar early on for Alport, Alex Hughes fired just wide and Si Everall was denied by a great stop from the home keeper as Whitchurch demonstrated their potential goal threat. And on 33 minutes, Blundell sized up a free-kick from outside the box to find the corner with a perfectly executed strike of the ball to give the Reds a deserved lead. Ashbrook then saw his superb free-kick kept out by another fine save from the CoL goalie in a one-sided first 45.
With 15 minutes of the second half played though, a highly contentious penalty award brought Liverpool back into the game. The referee blew up for the softest of free kicks against Luke Goddard a metre or so outside the area but decided to consult a linesman. Astonishingly, despite the lino not having flagged for the foul, the ref then indicated a penalty to the home side which Peterson converted to infuriate the Alport team. And when Read presented debutant Fowler with the ball and then slipped trying to recover the situation, Simon Burton’s men had turned the game on its head within a five minute period. This might well have made lesser sides wilt but Whitchurch kept their belief and were rewarded when Twigg’s daisy cutter flew into the bottom corner to give the away side the momentum inside the last 10 minutes. Ashbrook on his day is unplayable and when a run at the full back drew the foul, there were few complaints when the match official pointed to the spot for a second time. Blundell’s penalty settled the match to give Alport the points from what City of Liverpool’s twitter feed described as a brilliant away performance.