SANDBACH BEAT NORTHWICH IN THRILLING FESTIVE DERBY

Sandbach 1st XV 32-27 Northwich 1st XV

Saturday 20th December – Kick-off 2.15pm   

Northern Division – Regional 2 North West 

Bradwall Road, Sandbach 

Skipper Essenhigh scores a hat trick in bonus point victory

Sandbach gave their supporters an early Christmas present by beating their close rivals Northwich in a thrilling festive derby at Bradwall Road.

After last month’s last gasp win away to Douglas (I.O.M), Sandbach were itching to go again and reverse their fortunes after losing narrowly to Northwich in September.

Sandbach made several changes to their starting line up with Sam Bromley taking the number seven shirt. Hugo Rosser was handed his 1st XV debut on the wing and Jack Busby, who has been at the club since the Under 6s, was named as a replacement. This was a fantastic opportunity for the young players to impress and stake a claim in the first team.

Sandbach opened the scoring after four minutes with a penalty kick from Matt Randle. The full-back moved his points tally for the season to an impressive 130 and would add to it further throughout the afternoon. Northwich took the chance to level the scores five minutes later from a penalty and it was all square at 3-3.

Sandbach’s first try came a few minutes later when they picked up a penalty in Northwich’s half. Fly-half Henry Mitchell kicked to touch to give the Bach an attacking lineout from 5m out. Callum Oakden leapt to receive the ball and the maul quickly formed and pushed towards the line. The ball slipped out to Laurie Essenhigh who fired over for the try.

After the restart, Sandbach won the ball back on halfway from a Northwich lineout and George Perkins showed his confidence as he made a massive carry. Some slick passing between Essenhigh and prop Archie Lea led to Randle darting forward and into a high tackle. The Bach kicked to touch from the penalty and had another attacking opportunity from the lineout. It was a repeat of the last try as the maul charged towards the line and Essenhigh scored again.

Northwich reduced the deficit when their scrum overpowered Sandbach’s and they found a gap to score the try. From the restart, Northwich returned the ball to touch and Sandbach had a lineout. The throw went long and was collected by Oakden who linked with Essenhigh. From there Perkins made another big carry as Sandbach rushed through the phases. Centre Harry Leese attacked the line and made a nice sidestep before passing to Essenhigh who crossed over the line once more. The hat trick marked the captain’s tenth try of the season.

Before the end of the half, Sandbach had a succession of penalties close to the line and the rolling maul was used again. This time it was hooker Matt Davies who bounded over to secure the bonus point and Sandbach went in at half-time with a healthy 29-10 lead.

After the break, Northwich put Sandbach on the back foot. This time it was the visitor’s maul that earned the try, showing that they weren’t out of the game. Five minutes later and Sandbach’s lead was reduced further when Northwich applied the pressure in the home side’s twenty-two and snuck through for the try.

Sandbach began to get a foot back in the game. Northwich were trying to play the ball out, but the Bach were holding them back, thanks in part to a big hit by Leese. Northwich lost the ball and winger Rhys John shot towards the corner. He looked certain to score but a huge hit from Northwich’s outside centre put John into touch, ending his afternoon in the process but gifting Sandbach a penalty from 5m out. They worked the phases and after a further penalty was awarded, the hosts sensibly opted for the points. Randle drilled the kick over to put them ten points ahead.

With four minutes left, Northwich scored another try, but the conversion went wide. There was now only five points in it with a few minutes left to play. From the restart, Northwich tried to run with the ball, however, they got themselves trapped in their twenty-two. They played the ball out wide, but a miss pass sent the ball into touch and the match ended with Sandbach winning 32-27.

It was a lively and thrilling contest, with both sets of fans contributing to the electric atmosphere. Northwich returned home with two bonus points, having pushed the game to the wire. However, Sandbach deserved the win and they remain in second place, two points behind leaders North Ribblesdale. With only nine league games left, 2026 could be a big year for this youthful team.

Match report by Rhys Fullerton

Next match:

Birkenhead Park 1st XV Vs Sandbach 1st XV 

Saturday 10th January  

The Upper Park, Birkenhead

Match action from Sandbach's win against rivals Northwich. Photo by Andy Mitchell

Reader Poems

Nature’s Lullaby
by Anantha Rudravajhala

Love flows from heart to heart,
Its loveliness pervading all;
It seeps into a tender closeness,
Drawing nearer, soothing,
Singing melodiously
To lull the heart into tranquility,
To awaken the world to see
The union of two hearts,
Rejoicing hand in hand,
Their faces radiating grace.

Love rises to heavenly heights;
The fragrance of flowers flirts,
The wind entices the blooms
To uplift their lives
With a breath of fresh air.

Angels pause and peer;
Birds and bees rush in for nectar.

Nature emerges to summon
All creation to learn the lullaby—
Singing, soothing gently,
Whispering into hearts
A promise of sound sleep.

Christmas is a comin
by Stella Halliwell

What the hell is it when you go into Lidl
You know the one with a toilet when dying for a piddle
That makes your brain go
Oo I must get some milk while I’m here
Oo better get butter and dog food and beer
Go to IKEA for a set of shelves
Come out with a spice rack, 4 plants , festive elves
B&Ms for a peddle bin
But arrive at the checkout basket over flowin
Is it the lights or that music
The newness of products, consumin
Our minds
How our lives could be so much better
With a plastic knife to open a letter ( just use a metal one eh an who gets letters anymore )
It’s like Harry Houdini welcomes you at the door
Sayin “look into my eyes not around my eyes” enticing delighting, new fashions galore
I sometimes talk to myself like David Goggins
No! Don’t do it!
Discipline my girl!
Don’t even get a trolley
Do not give it a whirl
But then the voice says “Oo you so deserve that swanky shampoo “
“Why not save money and buy yourself two “( how is that saving eh ? )
Hypnotism that’s what
Subliminal ads have hit the spot
The only way to keep it at bay
Don’t enter shops
Stay away!
Oh Gosh but then you may shop online
Don’t get me started on that it’s a whole other rhyme
Ahhh!

Merry Christmas and 2025 Round-up

As we approach the last few weeks of 2025, we just wanted to get in touch with a brief round-up of all The Post has achieved over 2025 and our plans for 2026.

Our Overall Goals

As a not-for-profit organisation working to support local communities, we are dedicated to publishing positive, relevant local news and information, and continue to focus our efforts on publishing in print to ensure as many members of our communities as possible can access their local community newspaper, regardless of circumstances.

As you can imagine, being a publication that is free to readers, and one that provides 70% of content space to VCSE organisations for free, covering the costs of print and distribution are a continual challenge. 

Our ultimate goal is to be able to print and deliver a copy of the relevant area Post to every home in each borough we cover each month. This way, no one would miss out on important information including services that are available to them, events to attend, local groups to participate in, and any notices from councils that residents should be made aware of.

At some point over the next five years, we hope to achieve this, but it will need the support of larger local organizations, and for them to understand exactly what The Post is and the impact it has as a not-for-profit organisation supporting so many other VCSE organisations and residents across our local communities.

Our Work in 2025

This year, we met our goal of launching a Post for Salford, with the response from the Salford community having been incredibly positive - volunteers came forward and content was submitted before we even launched the first issue. We must also thank Salford Council who saw and understood what we were trying to do from the outset, and who have been incredibly supportive. We hope to be working with them more closely through 2026 and beyond.

We have continued to work with partners needing to get their newsletters and event programmes out to residents in print. These have been produced as fully branded supplements inside the relevant Post newspaper and include:

• Funders such as Salix Homes and KAO Data sharing news about their fund, the recipients of funding and their projects.

• Support organisations such as Age Friendly Manchester and the Withington & Old Moat Neighbourshood sharing their bi-annual/quarterly newsletters as fully branded, multi-page, pull-out supplements inside the relevant Post newspaper.

• Event organisers including Chorlton Arts Festival and Poynton Arts Festival whose event programmes and venue maps were published as fully branded pull-out programmes inside the relevant Post newspaper.

Working with organisations to publish supplements has proved an effective way for organisations to not only reach more residents within their target area(s), but to do so at a much lower cost than producing their own stand-alone printed newsletter/programme. We hope to expand on this supplement model over 2026 and work with more organisations to help them get newsletters out in print.

If you would like to leave a review for Post Community Newspapers to let us and others know what you enjoy about The Post, how it may have helped you or your organisation, and what having a free, positive, community-focused newspaper means to you, it would be greatly appreciated and will help us to build our 2026 Social Impact Report. Please leave a review via goggle here

2026 and Beyond

2026 will see us continue to work to keep all of our current publications in print and to increase the print and door-to-door distribution of each area Post.

In spring 2026, we will be launching a Post for Bolton, with Posts for Bury and Tameside planned towards the end of 2026.

Since we switched the way we published The Post - moving from small, hyperlocal areas to borough-wide publications two years ago, it became our aim to 'complete the 10' by having a Post for each of the 10 boroughs of Greater Manchester. This, of course, can only be achieved and sustained with financial support. Until we achieve this, we will look to initially publish online to ensure residents in our new target areas have at least some access to the sort of local, relevant and positive community-focused news The Post is known for.

Launch of a Subscription Service for Additional News 

To mark 6 years celebrating positive local news, and with so much local news and information that needs to be shared, we are launching an additional online news service.

As a not-for-profit producing a free monthly newspaper, we are simply unable to accommodate all the content we receive. This is partly due to time restrictions, as we often receive news after we have begun the layout process, but also due to limited funds. While the printed newspaper is free to readers, the cost to us increases each time we add additional pages, And so we can only print the number of pages that we have the funds available to cover, meaning that the content we receive is often more than we can afford to print.

In order to ensure we can share any news that cannot be accommodated in the printed issue, and to also be able to share news that arrives too late for inclusion in the print issue, we are launching a subscription service where readers can receive weekly 'latest news' directly to their inbox - for free. 

The Post Latest News subscription service will launch in January 2026 - Subscribe now!

Finally, we would just like to thank you for reading and supporting The Post over the last 12 months, and we hope you continue to enjoy your local community newspaper throughout 2026.

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas.

Amanda, Mel and the Post Community Newspaper Team.

Veteran’s Plea for Message of Hope

An Army veteran from Greater Manchester is asking local people to send a message of hope to our veterans this Christmas, to show again that they value our service men and women. 

Last December, thousands of messages of support for veterans were posted online on the Help for Heroes Message Wall, and the Charity is hoping that people from Greater Manchester will respond again.

Laurence Moore, age 44 and from Stockport, served for 12 years in the Mercian Regiment and said: “Veterans can sometimes feel they are forgotten by society. And if they’re living with physical injuries, disabilities or mental illness they can become isolated – and especially at Christmas, their mental health can spiral down even further.

“The messages left by members of the public last year were so heart-warming. It would be great if we could get as many messages of hope as possible from people across Greater Manchester, which will show all our veterans that their service hasn’t been forgotten. Leaving a message is easy to do, and there’s no cost involved.”

Laurence’s career was cut short in 2015 by PTSD. He credits the guidance and support he received from Help for Heroes with helping to create a new chapter in his life and added: “When I was first diagnosed with PTSD, I isolated myself from everyone for a long period of time whilst I attempted to deal with the fallout. This was a very lonely period for me, especially over the festive season. I would decorate my tree and buy presents, knowing that no one else would see them, no one would buy me a present and my mantelpiece would be empty. 

“However, one of the most heart lifting things that happened was when amongst the mail was a Christmas card from Help for Heroes. It sat alone but proud on my shelf, but on a deeper level reminded me that I was part of another family, which would always have my back and be there for me.” 

Help for Heroes is aiming to send over 10,000 Christmas cards to veterans again this year, which will include messages of support from members of the public.

Laurence commented: “When you are in the armed forces, the sense of camaraderie is very strong. It’s different in civilian life and some veterans miss the military sense of family and closeness. It can lead to feelings of alienation.

“A few heartfelt words can remind someone they’re seen, valued, and appreciated. It could be the first step towards them reaching out for life-changing support, and to starting a new chapter in their lives.

“Because no one who served their country should feel alone, forgotten, or left behind this Christmas.  Together, we can help them continue their story – and make sure their next chapter is filled with hope, purpose, and belonging."

Latest data shows that there are more than 68,000 veterans living in Greater Manchester. If you would like to add your own message of support to the Help for Heroes Message Wall or make a donation, then go to: https://sendamessage.helpforheroes.org.uk/

Army Veteran Laurence Moore