Sunderland RCA 4 North Shields 2

skilltraining Northern League

20 December 2008

This was a real battle on a very poor pitch with North Shields unrecognisable from the team we played early in the season.

Manger, Neil Hixon made a couple of changes with Andy Reay resuming at the back and young Anthony Ashman making his debut alongside him as Gary Anderson dropped out with injury and Wayne Henderson was only on the bench. We reverted to a wing back formation with Anth Laidler going back into the middle of the park, as Adam McGuinness was also missing due to family illness.

The game was delayed for a minute or two for a presentation to SunderlandvRCA's Graham Defty to mark his fifty years in the game. League chairman Mike Amos did the honours, and the event was marked with warm applause from the crowd and both teams.

The sides kicked off and it was clear it was going to be a physical contest with football hard to play on the sticky surface that broke up from the start. North Shields were very combative and RCA stood up to it, and the Ref was fully involved. No surprise therefore when Shields took the lead after quarter of an hour through Ian Dugdale, up supporting his attack. RCA hit back immediately with young Ashman causing a few problems with his good quality long throws and within three minutes we were level as Sparky Davison forced home the ball at the far pst from a free kick. But Shields continued to harry and came again to lead from a corner as Brian Smith won a header at the back post, which Gary Hoggeth saved well, only for Smith to seize on the rebound and score. 2-1 to North Shields at the break.

RCA came out with a determined manner for the second period, playing up the bank and keeping the ball well. Dava Lee got the equaliser, scoring direct from a free kick out wide, despite the linesman trying to disallow it for offside. Sparky then put our noses in front for the first time with an absolutely superb header from an Andy Jennings cross, which beat the keeper on his line, and Andy Reay got forward to head home in text book style with another good effort to give us a two goal cushion. Shields didn't give up, pressed hard and had a goal marked off, but we held firm and took the points again. Five games unbeaten now, let's keep going!