BOROUGH PARK MEMORIES: Play-offs glory
- 21 hours ago
- 3 min read
Our latest delve into the Borough Park archives is quite recent, just three years ago in fact.
We recall the excitement at the end of the 2022-23 season when, after finishing third behind Macclesfield and Leek Town, we qualified for our eighth tilt at the end of season play-offs.
For some of the younger end of our fan base, that may have been just their first or second experience of watching Reds in play-off action but, actually, we have featured regularly throughout the last two decades.
Back in 2004-05, Tommy Cassidy guided us to promotion after that memorable shoot-out victory over Farsley Celtic. He then got us to the Conference North play-offs two years later but we fell in the two-legged semi to Hinckley United.
Darren Edmondson took us to the Conference North Play-offs in 2009-10 but, once again, we fell at the semi-final stage when Alfreton Town beat us home and away.
Gavin Skelton was in charge when we were next involved but participation in the NPL Premier play-offs, at the end of 2014-15, ended abruptly when Ilkeston Town won 1-0 at Borough Park.
The following season, we did buck the trend by actually reaching the final under Derek Townsley but after a magnificent 4-3 semi-final success at Blyth Spartans, we narrowly lost in the final at Salford City.
And for the third successive season, we again reached the NPL Premier Division promotion play-offs in 2016-17 only to fall at Stourbridge, 2-3, at the first hurdle. David Hewson and Lee Andrews led the team on that occasion.
Four years ago, under Chris Willcok, and after narrowly missing out on the title to Warrington Rylands on the final day of the season, we entered the NPL West Division play-offs but Marine ended our interest at Borough Park winning 3-2 in extra time.
So, after one success and six ‘failures’, surely it was our time in 2023.
Our run-in didn’t get off to the best possible start with an April 1st defeat at Widnes but Easter was profitable with a 5-0 home win over Witton Albion, followed by a 3-1 success at Kidsgrove Athletic.
Another topsy-turvy encounter saw us lose at 1874 Northwich (3-4) in the final away match but we ended the campaign with a comfortable 4-0 home win over Colne.
That meant we finished in 3rd position and a home tie against Clitheroe who had already won at Borough Park earlier in the season. An impressive performance from Danny Grainger’s team secured a passage into the final with a goal in each half clinching a 2-0 win, Conor Tinnion and Dav Symington netting the all-important goals.
In the other semi, Runcorn Linnets had emerged 3-1 winners at Leek Town so they would be our opponents in the Borough Park final on the Saturday. We had already completed a league double over Linnets but they had knocked us out of the Trophy so, with home advantage, we started as slight favourites.
We produced another convincing performance, despite being dragged through extra time, and were duly promoted after ending the afternoon as 2-1 winners.
Yet it was Runcorn who opened the scoring with Lewis Doyle pouncing on a poor clearance, giving Linnets a fifth minute advantage. Our equaliser, on the half hour mark, was a touch fortunate after Sam Heathcote sliced Kai Nugent’s low cross into his own net.
Then, for long spells, it was one-way traffic to Danny Taberner’s goal with the Runcorn ‘keeper saving superbly to thwart Charlie Birch, Dav Symington, Conor Tinnion and Nugent whilst Dav and Kai also saw shots rebound off the crossbar.
The winning goal came from Lewis Reilly who headed home the 100th minute decider, via an assist from man-of-the-match Bobby Carroll. Ironically, Lewis and Bobby were two of Reds’ ‘travellers’ and lived nearer to Runcorn than Workington!
Then League chairman, Mark Harris, presented the play-off winners trophy to Reds’ trio of recipients Conor Tinnion, Scott Allison and Dan Wordsworth before the crowd (2,506) joined in with the post-match celebrations.
The team representing Reds on that memorable afternoon was:
Jim Atkinson, Greg McCaragher, Charlie Birch, Dan Wordsworth, Steven Rigg, Bobby Carroll (Ceiran Casson), David Symington, Kai Nugent (Brad Hubbold), Scott Allison, Reuben Jerome (Lewis Reilly), Conor Tinnion. Substitutes – Matty Clarke and Keelan Leslie.
It was a fitting end to the season and a deserved promotion after just missing out the previous year and the Covid interrupted seasons prior to that.
