Tonight's game started with Whickham making five changes to the starting line up after Saturday's 2-1 win at Chester le Street, with Scott Wilson making one of his rare appearances, (he always makes his presence felt in midfield). We started off with a front two of Tony Thirkell and Andy Snaith a pair who will cause problems for any defence. Whickham took the lead after 24 minutes when Andy Snaith headed into the far corner from a left wing cross. This was followed 6 minutes later, with a clinical Tony Thirkell left foot volley which gave the Birtley keeper absolutely no chance of getting a hand to. 'Birthday boy' Jordan Lartey providing the cross. On 35 minutes Birley got a fortunate free kick about 25 yards out, Craig Marron hitting the kick perfectly into the top corner of Whickham's net leaving Scott Cresswell with no chance of stopping it. ht 2-1.
On the hour Whickham took a 3-1 lead when Andy Snaith hit his second goal with a shot from around the penalty spot after Birtley failed to clear. On 80 minutes Birtley had the chance to reduce Whickham's two goal lead when they were awarded a penalty. After his cracking free kick in the first half Marron then proceeded to send Scott Cresswell the wrong way only to hit the post, the ball being cleared by the Whickham defence. In the 84th minute, Birtley did reduce the score to 3-2 when Daniel Smith hit a low shot to Scott Cresswell's right. A good performance with WFC now in 5th place in the NL 2nd division.

Team: Scott Cresswell. Scot Goldsmith-Scott. Sam MacIntosh. Jordan Lee. Craig Cavanagh. David Rayner. Paul Cavanagh (Andrew Farrey). Scott Wilson (Daniel Streibelt). Andrew Snaith (2 goals) (Joe Danquah). Tony Thirkell. Jordan Lartey.

Unused subs: Liam Poppleton and Eddy Keenan

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Fair enough comments mate, thought it could have went either way to be honest but we dug in and making 5 changes from Saturday shows our squad is capable of getting us results.

Think the Pen miss was crucial but these things go for you sometimes, and although I still think we're very much a work in progress, we're all happy with our start.

Totally agree les, had I have pur that away rather than it coming back off the post you then have 15 mins to hold on as opposed to 5 when we got our 2nd.

All the best for the season

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Maz
follow on twiiter @CTmazza04