NORTHWICH Victoria will take some stopping if they can consistently repeat Tuesday night’s form against ‘derby’ rivals Winsford United.
The Trickies won first bragging rights of the new season with a 4-0 win at Barton Stadium.
While they are unbeaten in their three Midland Premier League matches so far, this was an eyebrow-raising victory or the Greens.
In other games they had created chances and not took many of them, heading to Blues having only scored three times in five league and cup fixtures.
But as well as netting four times against a table-topping Winsford side that had previously conceded none in their three league games, Vics achieved an impressive sixth clean sheet that left their manager Lee Duckworth purring.
“It is remarkable. All through pre-season we were wondering if we would ever get a clean sheet because they were all high-scoring games,” said former Winsford manager Duckworth.
“Full credit to the back four, the midfield and the strikers – everybody’s working together to make that happen.
“Andre (Mendes, goalkeeper) is pleased as punch because it’s nine hours since someone’s scored past us. We’ll take that.”
Mikey Lawson had put Vics ahead before Winsford skipper Steve Jenyons and his teammate of last season Matty Birchall were shown red cards for an off-the-ball incident in the 33rd minute.
Elliott Rokka (44mins) and another Blues old boy Joe Duckworth (83) made it 3-0 before Winsford’s Harry Johnson was shown a second yellow card, and while down to nine men Blues conceded again to Ryan Atkinson in added time.
Winsford will seek to get their form back on track when they host Brocton on Saturday, while a day later Vics will host higher-division Bootle in the FA Cup preliminary round at the Apec Taxis Stadium in Runcorn.
Bootle will provide Vics with a tough test as they are currently unbeaten at the top of Northern Premier League West and won 4-2 at Witton Albion on Tuesday night, despite going a man down one minute into the second half due to Tom Hannigan’s red card.
At that point they led 2-0 with goals from Ryan Beigan (11mins) and ex-1874 Northwich captain Matty Fenton (20mins).
Ben Hodkinson stretched their lead in the 60th minute but almost immediately James Steele netted to give Witton a lifeline.
But four minutes later Jack McGown made it 4-1 and Freddy Garbutt’s 82nd-minute effort proving to be nothing more than a consolation.
Witton manager Ben Harrison said: “That was absolutely humbling. 4-2 flattered us, even when they went down to 10 men.
“Credit to Bootle. They were brilliant and beat us in every department.
“We just weren’t at it and I’m really surprised. It’s come as a bit of a shock to me.
“The warm-up was good, we seemed on it, and then we just didn’t get to grips with it at all. We didn’t compete well enough.
“That hurt and I didn’t think I’d be here saying these words.
“Question marks are on all of us.
“It doesn’t make us a bad team, it’s been all positive pretty much in pre-season and in the three games we’ve played, with good results in two of them and performances ok or better in all o them.
“But that’s been an eye opener for us. We’ve got to make sure this is a wake-up call that we’re nowhere near where we think we are. We’ve shown we’re not there yet.
“So we need to learn from it an learn quick because if we don’t, with the amount of games in August, you could be cut adrift very quickly.
“The bare minimum is competing and that’s what we didn’t do on Tuesday night.”
Witton host Nelson in the FA Cup preliminary round on Saturday and then return to league action at home to Kidsgrove Athletic on Tuesday.
It will be 1874 Northwich’s turn to tackle Bootle in NPL West next Wednesday but before that they will entertain Horbury Town in the FA Cup on Saturday at Townfield.
1874 will go into that on the back of a 1-0 home league defeat to Prescot Cables on Tuesday when Charley Doyle hit the 59th-minute winner.
Barnton fought back from 3-1 down to draw 3-3 at New Mills in NWCL First Division South, with Thomas Stanton (80) and Ben Mooney (83) earning the share of spoils.
The Villagers visit Bilston Town on Saturday.
Weekend kick-offs are all 3pm, with midweek’s contests 7.45pm.
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