If someone ever decided to compile an encyclopaedia of football terminology, they could do worse than to use this game to provide the textbook definition of 'after the Lord Mayor's show' as following their superb and fully merited win at Kendal a week earlier, Mossley crashed out of the FA Trophy in a horribly embarrassing fashion at home to Stocksbridge Park Steels.

The 27th minute header from Lee Blackshaw that put the hosts ahead at the break was one of the few moments of note in a half that was almost as bleak as the weather it was being played beneath. What little in the way of good stuff there was though was coming almost exclusively from the home side.

Lilywhites captain Graham Kay had gone close to putting his team one-up in as early as the 5th minute when he headed a corner against the crossbar but despite enjoying the greater share of possession, Mossley's failure to construct anything other than the very occasional half-chance with it was to prove costly; both to the tune of a place in the next round and the £2000 in prize money that was on offer.

The visitors emerged from the dressing rooms for the second half looking far more fired up than than they had done in the opening period while Mossley in stark contrast, appeared to be on the pitch in body but not in mind.
It was a situation Steels took swift advantage of and within four minutes of the restart they were level, Andy Ring poking the ball home from close range after a goalmouth scramble.

Stocksbridge's equaliser failed to shake Mossley from their sudden and unexpected stupor and neither did a triple substitution a few minutes later which, if anything, had the opposite effect to what the Lilywhites management team were hoping for as things slowly got worse for the home side.

Chances came and went with an alarming regularity for the Yorkshire side as Mossley's goal began to lead something of a charmed life. Not least when, in a foreshadowing of what was to come, Ring skipped unchallenged through a host of white shirts only to launch the ball over both Liam Higginbotham and the crossbar when hitting the net looked the easiest of the options available to him.

It was this and more moments like it that gave the majority of people inside Seel Park the hope that Mossley may just hang on to get a second bite of the cherry with a midweek replay, but with the game nearing its conclusion that hope evaporated in a glut of goals.

There was just seven minutes left when Carl Fothergill broke clear of the Mossley rearguard to finally put Stocksbridge ahead, and the score-line was then given its emphatic look by Jamie Vardy; the Steels striker netting what will probably be the easiest hat-trick he'll ever score in the space of just four minutes.

In some ways Mossley can count themselves lucky that Stocksbridge's total only reached five, such was the legion of chances the visitors both created and were presented with in those last seven minutes.

Given their impressive start to the season it may just be that this was a freak result for Mossley, the kind most teams suffer at least once a season. But after their 'giant killing' efforts in the FA Cup seven days earlier, what it does do is act as a timely feet grounding exercise ahead of an important league game in midweek and the derby against Curzon Ashton.

Report by SJNR

Ryan Cook takes on a Stocksbridge defender

Lee Blackshaw heads Mossley's goal from Nicky Boshell's cross

Mike Fish gets in a cross

Messrs Flanagan and Willcock are not happy with what they've seen!

pics by Aaron Flanagan