A FIRST half described by manager Jon Macken as “a capitulation” condemned Witton Albion to defeat this afternoon.

Albion were thrashed 4-0 at high-flying Stalybridge Celtic, with all four goals coming before half time.

Aaron Dwyer and Matty Bryan scored twice each for the hosts, with Macken critical of how his side folded before the break.

“It was a really bad first half performance,” he said.

“I don’t want to take anything away from them, but I think we were really poor all over – it just wasn’t good enough at all.

“We weren’t at the races, we were giving sloppy second balls away and we didn’t put any balls in the box with real conviction.

“They went 1-0 up and we had a great chance which we hit straight at the keeper – you need to score those, especially away from home against a really good team.

“It’s really disappointing with the manner of the goals and the way in which we capitulated in the first half.”

Witton also finished with 10 men after skipper Kingsley Williams was sent off late on, with the result leaving them 10th in the Northern Premier League West Division table.

They are back in action next weekend as they welcome Widnes to the U Lock It Stadium on Saturday.

Meanwhile, there was overdue reason to celebrate for both Northwich Victoria and Winsford United as both secured their first victories of the season.

Vics were 2-0 winners over AFC Wulfrunians at the U Lock It Stadium, with Marcus Perry and Sam Unwin finding the net in the first half for Steve Pickup’s men.

“I thought we were very, very good in the first half – we went in 2-0 up and probably could have been three up,” Pickup said.

“We said to them in the second half that they were going to come at us, which they did – they changed their shape and pushed on but every man stood up to be counted.

“In the last 20 minutes, it opened up and we could have scored a few more.”

After starting the season with 11 straight defeats, Winsford finally got themselves in the winner’s circle in impressive fashion.

They recovered from conceding the opening goal after just two minutes to thrash fellow winless side New Mills 5-1, with Reece Davies equalising before Tom Stanton’s penalty put Blues ahead.

Ross Aikenhead then scored twice in as many minutes after the break before Jeanny Leblanc-Akpo rounded off the scoring late on.