Hatters star in thrilling eight-goal tie

FRESH off the back of an excellent win away at Bradford last weekend, the Hatters hosted Norton and Stockton Ancients at Stockport Sports Village.

Kick off was delayed by half an hour as the opposition side, who were traveling from the North East, got caught in some nasty traffic on the M62 and only arrived in Woodley ten minutes before the originally scheduled kickoff time.

The starting XI for County remained unchanged from last week’s win over Bradford, with Niamh Attfield and Abbie Carrington making their returns to the bench, Attfield in place of Chloe Williams and Carrington returning from suspension.

The Hatters started brightly, taking the lead within the first five minutes through Sophie John with the midfielder getting some space a good distance from goal before unleashing an excellent volley up and over the ‘keeper and into the back of the net.

Norton pulled level almost immediately, running right down to the other end and equalising just thirty seconds from the restart.

The deadlock was broken again within a minute of the next restart as Hanna Wilson and Ellise Newby linked up well on the right hand side before whipping in a good cross to Hanifa Douglas whose effort crashed off the post, only to be tapped in by Imogen PorteousWilliams from close range, the midfielder picking up her first senior goal for the Hatters at just seventeen years old.

The visitors levelled the scored up again on the twenty five minute mark as Shannon Reed took the ball inside the County half and lobbed a long ball into the air and over Jess Linford to level up the scores once more.

County then took the lead once more when Masa Butler broke through from full-back and looked set to cross the ball into Newby but instead let off an excellent strike to beat the ‘keeper and make it 3-2.

The visitors then levelled up the scores once more from a corner. The ball in beat Linford and was headed in from close range to make it 3-3 at the break.

HT | Stockport County 3-3 Norton & Stockton Ancients

The Hatters then went behind as Eve Marshall got on the end of an excellent through ball before curling her shot round Linford and into the back of the net to give Norton the lead.

From going behind, it took County half an hour to salvage anything from the game.

After some very close chances for the Hatters throughout the rest of the second half, it was substitute Chloe Mapp who finally broke through with ninety three minutes on the clock, the ball pinballing in the box before falling to last season’s top scorer who made no mistake and buried it beyond Chisnall to make it 4-4.

FT | Stockport County 4-4 Norton and Stockton Ancients