Alport 3 Chadderton 1
 
Alport returned to winning ways with a 3-1 home victory over Chadderton having dropped two points against Alsager Town the previous Saturday. But if ever there was the proverbial game of two halves, this was it. The Reds were two goals to the good after a first half where the visitors barely got a sniff of the ball and who really should have been dead and buried by the interval. Two Arron Johns goals had given Whitchurch a cushion but they missed several more good opportunities to score and put the game to bed. And after Chadderton halved the arrears less than a minute into the second period, Alport became jittery and had to wait until the fifth minute of added on time before substitute Ryan Thomas hit the goal that finally dispelled the nerves.
 
Simon Everall had landed an early header onto the roof of the net and Elliot Ledwards headed another chance miles over or Alport might have been two up in a little over five minutes. Then Johns went through after being slipped in by Joey Howell, only to see Jordan Latham make a decent save. All this was in a rampant 10 minute opening spell where the hosts laid siege to their opponent’s goal.
 
So when the opener came on 14 minutes it hardly came as a surprise. Sean Griffiths this time got Johns in behind and as Latham advanced to make the target appear a little smaller, Johns calmly slipped it beneath him and into the empty net. Three minutes later Lee Pickerill brought a great save from the Chadderton stopper with a venomous left foot drive, and Johns had two more really good opportunities to score. With Alport in complete control and creating chances at will, Ledwards couldn’t get out of the way of a Hovik Nersesyan goalbound shot and inadvertently headed away the danger, and Nersesyan came even closer moments later when his towering header from a Pickerill corner slammed against the upright.
 
The Reds weren’t to be denied though and Johns just about managed to squeeze the ball home from close range despite Latham’s best efforts to keep the effort out on 34 minutes. As the half time whistle sounded – seconds after a penalty claim was turned down with Everall appearing to be held off – there seemed little chance for Chadderton who had been so far second best, they might well have packed up and gone home happy at quarter to four.
 
But sloppy defending allowed Jack O’Leary to slam the ball high past Danny Read from 6 yards after ghosting in at the far post. And 60 seconds later there was almost an instant equaliser with Read flying to his right to beat away Jack Turnbull’s shot which was headed for the far corner.
 
Eighteen minutes from the end and Michael Woolfe picked up a second yellow to leave the visitors short on numbers but still Chadderton came forward, looking a shadow of the side that had been forced to defend throughout the entire first half.  There were a few scary moments but Pickerill had a great chance to wrap up the points with four minutes left only for Latham to come out on top and Thomas was thrown up front by manager Luke Goddard with the game poised to go into the added on minutes. And in the fifth of those Alport countered, and Thomas saw his deflected shot loop into the unguarded goal with Latham wrong footed and powerless to keep it out.