All Things Stockport County

County earned 3 vital points today with a hard fought win against Alfreton Town at Edgeley Park. The margin of victory.... 1-0....reflected the amount of graft the blues were required to put in to overcome a Town side that battled ( a little too over zealously at times) from the first blast of Referee James Bell's whistle to the last. The first blast was delayed ,by 30 minutes, until 3.30 as the visitors had had a spot of difficulty with the nations m ot orway system. Once on the premises however, they put in 90 odd minutes to thwart County's best efforts to put the game beyond them. County,   without ever reaching   Saturday's heights at Ashton, did do enough to suggest that more than one goal would come their way along with the points though. Certainly that was my thoughts as the teams came out for the second half with Kallum Mantack's goal separating them, but County, who had had to sacrifice captain Harry Winter( booked ) in favour of Boha

Somehow County managed not to win this game…..a game that they might have been 4 or 5 up in by half time had luck and a linesman not intervened. Some shots of the magnificent County following. With Darren Stephenson roasting the Nash with a terrific display, County went into a 1-0 lead in pretty short order. The margin of their superiority over the home side really merited a greater return however, but despite peppering the Nash goal with a humungous number of shots, it stayed 1-0. That said…..they did score a perfectly valid second goal when Oswell fired home from Ball’s effort, only for the referee, the abysmally poor Dave Underwood, to follow the lead of his erring liner and rule it out.    Darren Stephenson ( Andrew Machin ) That was a poor decision…..the first of many in the game from a referee who seemed hell bent on dishing County when at all possible- a plethora of fouls   particularly by   Jamie Stott on Oswell in the fi