Blue day for The Dog

ADAM Sutcliffe scored the winning goal for Blue Club on a wintry afternoon at Cathedral Road in the Midas Plumbing and Heating Services Oldham Sunday League David Giblin Division Two.

On the coldest day of the football season so far, credit must go to both teams for weathering the, erm, weather!

Vivaldi would have been proud as all four seasons were on display – hailstorms, sunshine, wind and the last leaves on the trees as they fluttered in the air like brown confetti.

Conditions, then, not ideal for silky football, but you can’t argue with five mostly well-taken goals and an attempt by both teams to play as attractively as possible.

Blue Club manager Keith Tickle said: “There wasn’t much in it and the conditions didn’t help.

“We should have scored more goals than we did but that has been our problem all season.”

The Dog player-manager Danny Newton said: “It was a scrappy game and they nicked it in the end.

“Considering the conditions and the fact that we had no substitutes I thought we did very well.”

As those on the sidelines were turning blue with the cold, it was Blue Club who took the lead after 15 minutes when Adam Ruddock netted with a close-range header.

Chances were few and far between for the remainder of the opening period, but Blue Club doubled their advantage after Sam Leigh intercepted an attempted back-pass before rounding Chris Keighley in the Dog goal and slotting the ball home.

But just to prove that Dog’s bite was better than their bark, Paul Turner’s header on 67 minutes, followed by Paul Clayton’s leveller with 13 minutes left to play - a mazy run topped with a smart finish - at least showed that they had some pedigree.

Dog will certainly win a lot more games than they already have done if they perform to this level in the future, no bones about it.

Blue Club snatched the winner in the 82nd minute when a nicely-worked interchange of passes between Michael Wood and last season’s Second Division player-of-the-year Sutcliffe was rounded off by the latter firing the ball home from 14 yards out.

Editor’s note: We don’t want silly jokes in your reports thank you.

BLUE CLUB: Parkinson, Proctor, Henderson, Cope, Chambers, D Tickle, Wood, Green, Ruddock, Leigh, Sutcliffe. Subs: J Tickle, Foster.

THE DOG: Keighley, Newton, Turner, Harris, Ashworth, Clayton, Hallwood, Bardsley, Whyatt, Young, Fothergill. No subs.

REFEREE: Z Eko.