Warrington Rylands celebrate historic FA Cup victory

Report by Garry Clarke Pictures: Mark Percy

WARRINGTON Rylands 1906 celebrated hosting their first-ever FA cup game at Gorsey Lane with an impressive victory against higher-ranked Clitheroe in front of a sell-out 300 crowd.

Basking in the September sun, neutrals would have had difficulty in guessing which was the North West Counties League team and which played a level higher in the Northern Premier League.
The decisive moment in a fast open game between two evenly matched teams came just before the hour mark.
Kane Drummond racing onto a long ball twisted and turned the Clitheroe defence inside out before slipping the ball to Paul Shanley who turned it back to Ste Milne. The scorer of a hat trick in the previous round, Milne cut inside a defender calmly picked his spot to drill the ball into the bottom corner of the net.

Clitheroe enjoyed the better of the opening exchanges. In the first minute Kielan Adams’ long range shot squirmed under Graeme McCall’s body fortunately it emerged inches wide of the goal. a few minutes later the Warrington Rylands goalkeeper spectacularly diverted a back pass wide with a diving header. In the 10th minute Danny Wilkins fired a shot inches wide of the home side’s goal.
Having survived the opening onslaught Warrington Rylands started to find their feet exerting pressure on their visitor’s goal creating a number of half chances as Cltheroe struggled to clear their lines.
After Milne’s 58th minute goal Clitheroe committed more men forward in search of an equaliser, peppering Warrington Rylands’s goal with crosses and shots from long range, all of which plus a couple of goalmouth scrambles were repelled by a resolute defence.
As their frustrations grew they became more susceptible to being caught on the break by Warrington Rylands’s pacy forward line, with Kane Drummond leading the charge causing Clitheroe some anxious moments, none more so than when he set up Michael Simpson whose shot from the edge of the area was deflected wide.
With just over ten minutes remaining Clitheroe were reduced to ten men. Drummond was brought down on the half way line by Bill Priestly who had been booked for a foul in the first half. Priestly only received a ticking off by the referee, but his team mate Olly Muir was dismissed following his actions in the melee which followed the foul.
Despite all of Clitheroe’s efforts to level the score Warrington Rylands held firm to secure their place in Monday’s first qualifying round draw.

After the game manager Dave McNabb commented “Unbelievable performance today from the lads and they deserve every bit of credit. Far and away the biggest game of the clubs history and each and every one of them should be proud. Still in shock with just how good the support was it made a huge difference throughout the game but especially the last 10 minutes.”

Finally from us tonight, here’s our interview with @Stemilne1 @WG_Sport @warringtonworld pic.twitter.com/jI4h7dGDbD

— Warrington Rylands FC (@RylandsFC) September 12, 2020

Thoughts from our Manager, @davidmcnabb82 on today’s outstanding result and performance. @WG_Sport @warringtonworld pic.twitter.com/giC9m5bqyY

— Warrington Rylands FC (@RylandsFC) September 12, 2020