Lancaster City 2 Curzon Ashton 1 A SUPERB goal, a swirling wind and a bit of a battle summed up this top of the table clash at Giant Axe on Saturday. And that victory over fellow promotion hopefuls Curzon Ashton means that the Blues in first place and Alfreton Town - Lancaster's hosts on Saturday - in second have opened up a gap at the top of the Unibond First Division. Both sides started cautiously in the poor conditions and few chances were created frustrating the dynamic strike forces of Diggle and Borrowdale for City and O'Connor and Heavey for Curzon.

It took 29 minutes and a goal as good as Giant Axe has seen for a long time to break the deadlock and it came for the Blues in the shape of in-form Mark Shirley.

Shirley collected the ball fifteen yards inside his own, beat his man and went on a strong forward run that ended with him cutting in from the left and curling a shot into the far corner of the net from outside the Curzon penalty area.

That strike, and a brilliant save from Mark Thornley following a Heavey strike, kept Alan Tinsley's men in front until half-time and set the match up for an exciting second period.

And just seven minutes after the interval the visitors hit back when City's defenders failed to clear a corner and O'Connor's shot came back off the post to the feet of Heavey who just couldn't miss.

The scores were level for just three minutes and it was that man Stuart Diggle again who took City back into the lead and kept them sitting pretty at the top of the table.

Diggle's goal came after a Dave Sharples free-kick caused havoc in the Curzon area and when the ball fell to the feet of the impressive Steve Trainor his cross was tailor-made for Diggle to nod home.

That wasn't the end of the action for Diggle who was involved in the flare-up a couple of minutes from time when Curzon's Gary Finley wrestled him to the floor and was duly sent off by the referee. TEAM: Thornley, Curwen, Stimpson, Hartley, Eatough, Flannery, Trainor, Sharples, Diggle, Borrowdale (Bell), Shirley (Yeo). SUB: Key.

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