Dog are right out of luck

LEADING THE WAY: Horseshoe’s Daniel Jackson (green shirt).

Horseshoe 8, Dog and Partridge 2

HORSESHOE moved closer to mid-table in Martin Buckley Division Two of the Oldham Sunday League with an emphatic victory over Dog and Partridge at Clayton playing fields.

I have always maintained the Clayton site is a bastion for local football – especially on Sundays – and last weekend on a typical autumn afternoon of grey skies and spots of rain the action I witnessed reinforced my view.

Okay, Clayton playing fields is not as occupied as it used to be now that the Ashton Sunday League has gone. But whenever Clayton is even just more-or-less in full use these days, that same atmosphere of passion and the will to win still prevails.

That was exactly the case when Horseshoe and Dog and Partridge put up their nets and the players’ names down on the team sheet.

Both teams occupied lowly places in the league’s basement division before kick-off, but it was Horseshoe who moved up the table – slightly – with a display of attacking prowess to demoralise their opponents.

Yet it was Dog who took the lead after just four minutes when Ben Kirkham’s spectacular volley – easily the best goal of the game – put the cat among the pigeons. Horseshoe responded with an eight-goal salvo to which Dog could only reply once more.

Horseshoe manager Mathew Young said: “It was a great all-round team performance and everyone played for each other. It was brilliant to get eight goals.”