WHILE the wintry storms forced virtually everyone else to take the weekend off, there was no let-up for CMB, who continued their bid to bring home some silverware with a fine victory on the road.

Rob Pennington’s side carried on their fine form with a 3-1 win at Milnthorpe Corinthians in the second round of the President’s Cup and, after getting the better of their high-flying divisional rivals, the manager still harbours ambitions of making a late charge to snatch the league title.

“These are exciting times for us,” he said after Matty Chapman’s double and Micky Ford’s goal 10 minutes from time saw them through in Cumbria. “Saturday’s win took us to seven in a row, it was the middle of November when we last lost a game, and so there’s a cracking buzz about the place, I’m excited to be involved in it.

“I was very pleased we were able to go there and beat them, and we deserved the win, we played fantastically well.

“Milnthorpe probably had about 70 per cent of the possession but couldn’t do anything with it.

“We knew their 3-4-3 formation would give our wide men the space to run into and that’s the way it panned out.

“We had a game plan and our fitness was impeccable.”

Chapman opened the scoring in the 17th minute, pouncing after Dan Crook had set up Ash Barlow for a pop at goal. Although the Corinthians’ keeper half-saved Barlow’s effort, it was rolling towards the line when Chapman leapt on the chance to force the ball in.

He doubled his and CMB’s tally on the half-hour mark, latching on to Ben McSorley’s through ball and beating the goalkeeper in a one-versus-one showdown.

Chapman would later be denied by a good save by the hosts’ stopper and, after Milnthorpe had crashed an effort against the CMB goal frame, they halved the deficit late in the game through their leading scorer Zach Clark, who flicked a ball into the box on, only to see it loop up and back down, underneath the bar.

Not that Pennington had cause to be unduly concerned as, soon after, Ford sealed victory with a neat finish.

It did not go entirely swimmingly for CMB, as injuries and absences meant they only took 12 players, three of them with no first-team experience, to Milnthorpe and their one substitute, Tom Healey, not having kicked a ball for six weeks.

In fact, Pennington counted 14 unavailable players for the cup tie, including former Bury stars Andy Bishop and Danny Swailes, as well as Liam Carr, Jamie Hilton and Mason Coyne.

“It’s a lot to have missing but we’ve got such strength in depth at the club now,” he added.

“I could have called up some of the reserve-team players but I didn’t think it would have been fair to have them cup-tied.

“We did have three playing their first game for us and Tom had not played in a while. Matty had been on the bench for the last four or five weeks and he came in and nearly hit a hat-trick, so we’re happy with the ability of what we have here right now.

“Matty has given me a nice problem too, he has done enough to be able to say ‘you can’t drop me’ and we’ve got Bish who’s scored four in three games and Ben Thornton who has seven in six.

“That said, Ben [McSorley] was our man of the match on Saturday, he was outstanding at centre-back. He’s played at a very good standard and, apart from their very fortunate goal, he nullified Zach Clark who has something like 30 goals in his last 20 games.

“We’ve got competition for places all over the team and those who have the shirts have to be at their best to keep hold of them.

“We still have interest in two cups and we’re looking towards the top of Division One too.

“We’re fourth and there’s a gap to make up on Hurst Green at the top but we’re confident we can go up this season – and I want to do it by finishing top.

“We’ve got [second-placed] Poulton in a few weeks but we won’t take Askam or Mill Hill St Peters lightly before then.

“We have a saying that’s emerged – ‘nothing else matters, only the next game.’ And if we stick to that we should do okay.”