Whilst nearly 40,000 blue and red noses were in attendance at the Everton-Liverpool derby on Saturday, St. Helens Town entertained neighbours Bootle before a more modest gathering in their own Merseyside derby at Brocstedes Park.

They marked their first home game since November with their own Red Nose day, in conjunction with main sponsors Johnsons Liverpool Toyota, but by half-time, there were more red faces than red noses in evidence, as the teams left the pitch with the St. Helens side 1-0 up, very much against the run of play.

Town, missing strikers Chad Whyte and Kris Bell, were very much second best in the early stages and, on only their second sortie into the Bootle half, on 30 minutes, Andy Gillespie netted with a deft downward header after a James Rushton-Woods corner bounced on the firm ground and bamboozled the visitors’ defence.

Bootle were in almost total control up to that point, penning the Town defence deep downfield and thought they had scored after 15 minutes, but the strike was disallowed following a clear push in the back of a Town defender.

Rushton-Woods was St. Helens’ man of the match by some distance, causing the Bootle defence a great many problems with a series of well-placed free kicks and although Paul Cook-Hannah and Gillespie – playing with a thigh injury – stuck to their task up front, the difficult playing surface negated the pace of speed merchant Marcus Perry, making it almost impossible to control the ball on the break.

The second half found Town under the cosh throughout and though Hamish Falconer and Aaron Morris did well at the back and Cole Ashton and Jack McKay held the midfield together as best they could, the relentless onslaught from a well-drilled Bootle side proved an irresistible force.

James McGrane levelled the scores on the hour when he met a well-placed cross and, seven minutes later, Tom Peterson hit the winner after Town had given away a needless free-kick on the corner of their own penalty area.

St. Helens did well to hold out for the rest of the game and might even have taken a point late on when Rushton-Woods dropped a high free-kick at the feet of Morris in front of goal, but the ball bobbled away from him as he pulled the trigger and the chance was gone.

This was an encouraging performance against the club placed eighth in the NW Counties Premier Division table and they will need to build on the positives when they travel to Barnoldswick on Saturday in a re-arranged fixture brought forward from the last day of the season.

Although Town are not in immediate danger of relegation, they really need to win this one to give them some breathing space over the bottom four clubs.

Barlick won at Alsager last time out, so will be no pushovers but, with three clubs scheduled to go down and Bacup and the currently suspended Stockport Sports overwhelming favourites for the drop, it will probably come down to one from three: Barnoldswick, AFC Blackpool or St. Helens Town.

Following the Barnoldswick game, Town return home to face landlords Ashton Athletic on Tuesday, February 17, kick-off 7.45pm with another home game on the last day of the month against Nelson.