Durham Alliance Combination League: Oddies on fire to boost title push

The impressive victory took the Sunderland side above their hosts into third place in the table, a point behind second-top Hall Farm with two games in hand.

They also stayed 14 points behind leaders Durham City Reserves, with five extra matches to play.

Michael Bulmer was again the main man for Oddies, adding a couple of his goals to his outstanding tally for the season, with Peter Harding also on target.

Andrew Smith was Oddies’ man of the match, with goalscorer Darren Simpson best for Coundon, who slipped to fourth place.

Table-toppers Durham City Reserves cruised to a 13-0 victory against Sunderland University on the artificial surface at Maiden Castle, with star man Craig Mountain and Daniel Knowd both grabbing hat-tricks.

Kyle Patton (2), Andrew Brown, Michael Webster, Kieron McWaters, Connor Henderson and Rhys Williams added to the woes of the students, whose man of the match was ever-busy keeper Nick Greenwood. City’s 13 goals took their league total to 113 in 22 games.

The University, late starters to the season, have now played 10 league games. Just the 24 to go!

The only other match to get the green light saw Sherburn Village WMC climb to fifth place on the back of a clinical 4-0 dismantling of Bishop Auckland Reserves.

Man of the match Glenn Hendrix, Alex Hord, Steven Turnbull and sub Scott Arnott did the damage, with Shaun Pickford top man for Bishops, who stayed seventh.