Forthcoming Fixtures

City Hold Out Celtic Comeback

SCFC 3 - 4 MCFC Reserves

City’s young reserves’ second pre-season match was held at Bower Fold, the home of Nationwide Conference North, Stalybridge Celtic FC. All of City’s starting eleven being teenagers made it a good test for them after a humiliating defeat to Hyde nearly two weeks ago. City took a deserved three nil lead into the half time break with goals from Micah Richards and Karl Bermingham and a dispute third which could have been an own goal or possibly Micah’s. Five minutes after the break, City got their forth with a fine strike from Micah. Stalybridge came back with three goals in the final twenty minutes to make it a tense finish.

City started the game playing down the heavily sloped pitch and seemed to adjust to the bounce on the dry surface quite well. As early as the fifth minute Ishmael Miller chased a long ball and lobbed the keeper but the defender was able to scramble back and clear the ball of the line and behind for a corner. The resulting corner was whipped in by Willo Flood and well finished from a fine header by Micah into the far corner.

City were doing all the pressing and it was no surprise that they doubled their lead on twenty minutes when Miller made a run on the left and his shot was blocked but cannoned into the path of Bermingham who fired low past the keeper for City’s second goal, and not the third that MCFC.co.uk claim it to be.

City’s third came three minutes later when Miller was fouled on the right edge of the area and Paul Collins sent a well weighted free kick in towards the far post and Micah reacted quickly and rose to meet the ball, but the defender might have beaten Micah to the ball to head past the keeper.

Stalybridge finished the half of well by putting City under more pressure and forcing Micah to clear of our own line after Kasper Schmeichel had fumbled a cross straight to Steve Smith who fired directly on goal.

City came out well after the break and again asserted their dominance on the game. So it was from a set piece five minutes into the half that the dominance was converted into another goal. The second of successive corners was delivered by Flood to the edge of the area and Micah rifled the ball into the net to give City a four nil lead.

City then replaced Micah on after sixty minutes for American trialist Brandon Moncrief and Michael Johnson for Flood. This seemed to disrupt City’s shape and invited more pressure from Celtic. So it was not long before they pulled a goal back thanks to new signing Chris Price. He was able to turn and shoot on the spin with the ball going in of the bar, giving Kasper no chance of saving it.

Then a decisive moment in the match; when the referee adjudged that the ball had hit our captain, Danny Warrender, in the arm in the penalty area. Up stepped Lee Mulvaney, to score his first ever goal for the Celtic. This gave Celtic real belief and forced City to defend even deeper.

So within ten minutes as the game went into the final five minutes Mulvaney doubled his Celtic goal tally and scored their third for the evening by sending a rasping twenty five yard drive into the bottom corner of the net.

Cit as the score shows were able to cling on to their slender lead, but once the older more experienced players were excluded from play there were obvious signs that some of these players need to work harder on their game if they are to progress.


Celtic: Pettinger(GK), Smith, Barnard, Keeling, Haran(Capt.), Wharton, Smith, Price, Ellington, Turvey, Prince.

Subs: Black, Caldecott, Murcott, Sykes, Eastwood, Mulvaney, Cornelly, Jackson, Buxton.


City: Schmeichel(GK), Warrender(Capt.), Collins, N D’Laryea, Richards(Moncreif 65), J D’Laryea, Bennett, Flood(Johnson 65), Miller, Bermingham(Murphy 71), Laird(Etuhu 67).

Subs: Matthewson (GK).

Att: 638.