Durham City 6 - Lancaster City 0:

LANCASTER'S PLAY-OFF HOPES HIT FOR SIX

A DISAPPOINTING four days for Lancaster City ended in a six-goal mauling at Durham on Tuesday.

Durham City showed their title credentials with six top quality goals against a City side without Neil Uberschar and Lee Dodgson and forced to reshuffle for the injured Neil Marshall after substitution. Strangely the score at that point was 0-0.

The scoring began just after the half-hour mark when Keith Graydon curled in his first free-kick into Mark Thornley's top right corner.

Eight minutes later, a few yards back and he repeated the feat to double the score, again giving Thornley no chance.

Just previous to that, City's best performer on the day, Aaron Helliwell, had a good chance to score, he took a touch too many and the chance passed by.

Helliwell was energetic and lively and, more importantly, he did not lose the ball in possession; a charge that could be levelled at some of his team-mates.

Durham were clinical going forward and just seconds after the break they increased their lead. Some slick passing and a dangerous cross gave Steven Richardson an easy back-post chance.

Helliwell popped up to strike City's only chance of the second half as he turned well showing quick feet but his half volley was straight at the goalkeeper.

At three up, Durham were comfortable and City looked well beaten. All their possession was in front of Durham's two well-versed banks of four with their central midfield duo of Graydon and Lewis Dodds having excellent games.

Durham added two more, both good finishes after accurate throughballs, first from Stephen Capper then Richardson's second.

While undoubtedly and visibly frustrated by their performance and the scoreline City battled, chased down every ball and never stopped trying to get themselves going.

Alan Coar and Mark Jackson worked tirelessly in attack but got little change from the home back four.

Matty Moffatt rounded off the scoring on 85 minutes with a well-struck shot past Neil Beesley, who came on to replace Thornley for the final 20 minutes.


DURHAM CITY: Turns, Smith, Capper (Harrison 80), Dodds, Dixon, Laws, Smith, Graydon (Duke 53), Richardson, Cogdon (Moffatt 72), English.

LANCASTER CITY:    Thornley 6 (Beesley 72), Heffernan 6, Marshall 6 (Wilson 23), Teague 6, Stringfellow 6, Entwisle6, Ward 5, Osbourne 6, Coar 6, Jackson 6 (Atkinson 72), Helliwell 7.

Aaron Jackson
Tuesday 7th April 2009

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