Ferryhill Athletic returned to winning ways with a convincing 3-0 victory over West Auckland Reserves at Dean Bank, reports Chris Orton.
Compared to the last time Athletic faced West, it seemed to be an entirely different pair of teams playing, with matters much more evenly matched. As with last week’s home game, the wind played a part in proceedings with both teams battling against it in the early stages.
Ferryhill were without Alfie Backhouse, but fielded a strong team against their promotion rivals. The game was very evenly matched in the early stages, and it wasn’t long before Chris Dodds scored with a looping shot that dropped into the net behind the West keeper.
West responded with a good spell of attacking play, but Athletic responded well with Alex Quinn shooting over the bar and Adam Morland hitting the side netting. At times the opposition looked threatening, but Harvey Gunn in the Ferryhill goal was equal to any of their attacks.
Into the second half and it wasn’t long before Ferryhill doubled their lead via Kieron Richardson when the ball bounced kindly for him before he fired home. Not long after this, Matthew Agar got the third when he fired into an empty net following an error from the West Auckland keeper.
The difficult conditions persisted, as did the battling performances from both sides. Richardson shot over the bar, Callum Watkinson fired wide and Matthew Agar put a shot against the post all in the space of a few minutes.
West kept up the pressure, but at the final whistle Ferryhill came out 3-0 victors.
It was a good solid performance from the home side who now go into a busy spell of games, with a trio of away games against Coxhoe on 15th April, Barnard Castle on the 17th and Birtley Town Development on the 20th.
Ferryhill & Chilton's local community newspaper.
