Battling Burscough beaten on the road
IT was always going to be a tough night for Burscough as they were forced to make their longest away trip of the season on a Monday night.
To add to the difficulty for the Linnets was the added motivation that their hosts had that if they won by four goals they would go top of the North-West Counties League Premier Division, and they had won eight of their opening ten games this season.
Manager Nick Matthews was minus a couple of his regular starting players due to having to travel down to Shropshire so early on, in the firsthalf Burscough did quite well but after the interval conceding an early own goal knocked them back and Whitchurch went on to beat them comfortably, netting the four goals that takes them to the top of the league.
Whitchurch started the game the stronger but Burscough held on well, they got plenty of players behind the home forwards and after around 25 minutes they began to make inroads themselves.
In the opening period Linnets goalkeeper Dave Jones made good saves from Jud Ellis and Dylan Bath, Jordan Coates looked threatening for the Linnets until he went off injured.
In the 35th minute Burscough came desperately close to taking the lead, a Deklan Hill header was going into the corner of the net but Whitchurch goalkeeper Dave Parton pulled off a tremendous save.
In the few minutes before half-time Whitchurch got on top again, they gave Burscough one massive scare when Dan Skelton slammed a shot against the post but again Burscough shut them out and went into the interval with the game goalless.
Things changed three minutes into the second half, Whitchurch attacked down the left hand side and Bath put the ball into the Linnets penalty area where captain on the night Joel Richardson put the ball into his own net to make it 1-0.
The goal boosted Whitchurch and three minutes later they doubled their lead and instead of an uphill task Burscough now had a mountain to climb if they were going to rescue the game.
A cross was sent deep to the far post and Bath ran on to it quickly and placed a header past keeper Jones.
Unfortunately for Burscough, Whitchurch were now well on top and they were going in for the kill.
Joe Cuff brought an excellent diving save out of Jones and Ellis went close.
Just after the hour mark Cuff crossed and Leon Ashman made it 3-0 his header going in rather luckily via the post.
It was all over then and Burscough to their credit continued to battle on, as the game progressed Jones was busy in goal making two saves from Bath, one from a long range effort the second a spectacular one from a shot that was clearly on course for the top corner of the net.
In the latter stages Whitchurch scored again when Hughes headed home off a corner.
It had been a bad night for Burscough and it could have been worse.
Manager Nick Matthews has a few players available on Saturday at Northwich Victoria that weren’t available on Monday night, it will be another tough game as Northwich are a big club at North West Counties level and have high expectations of picking up one of the three promotion places.
After that Burscough have a run of games that could see them push on up the league table, all is not as negative as it appears at Victoria Park. Parton, Minshull, Pickerill, Skelton, Ashman, Campion ©, Johns, Griffiths, Ellis, Bath, Hughes Subs Cuff, Dickin, Robinson, Walley, Dunne Jones, Lightfoot, Lomax, Richardson ©, Rawsthorne, Weston, Speed, Dobie, Hill, Henerty, Coates Subs Wright, Greene, Uppall Jamie Conde 206