Football - Kendal Town 3, Warrington Town 1 (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Football - Kendal Town 3, Warrington Town 1

10:30pm Thursday 30th March 2006 in Sport By Dennis Aris

KENDAL stormed back into the UniBond League First Division automatic promotion places with a gutsy performance in atrocious conditions.

There was standing water on the pitch before kick-off and as the rain lashed down the home side suffered an early double blow.

Captain Lee Ascroft limped off with a groin strain after 14 minutes then normally reliable keeper James Salisbury was deceived by Tommy Taylor's 30-yard skidder over the sodden surface.

The ball slithered under Salisbury to give the visitors an unjustified 24th minute lead as Kendal had dominated play, producing surprisingly constructive passing sequences in the abysmal conditions.

When Warrington central defender Douglas Pitt made four outstanding blocks to what looked like certain short-range certainties it began to look as if Kendal finishing was going to let them down again.

Perseverance paid off in the second half, however as strikers Chris Ward and sub David Foster chased down eveything that Kendal's solid defence threw forward.

The breakthrough came in the 73rd minute with Ward forcing his way into the right hand side of the Warrington box before squaring the ball to give unmarked Foster a simple conversion.

Four minutes later Russ McKenna floated a long ball from the left to the back post. Ward headed it down and Foster scrambled it home from amid a melee of players.

With the pitch becoming increasingly unplayable there were fears that Warrington could get back on terms from a break, but two minutes from the end midfielder Stuart Cliff was knocked over and held down by Chris Bermingham just as he broke clear on goal.

Cliff took the resulting penalty, sending keeper Richard Mottram the wrong way and wrapping up the poinfs to lift Kendal to second place in the league.