Reds ruin Yorkshire Day

The men from Manchester fired home four first half goals to claim their greatest scalp yet @ Nationwide Conference side Halifax Town and could well have spoilt the ‘Yorkshire Day’ celebrations for their hosts.

The Shaymen used the fixture to play a number of trialists with Ryan Sugden being the only player who started the Conference playoff final in May, but the Reds quickly set about dismantling their opposition regardless of their personnel.

Robert Nugent got things underway setting the tone early on when he rose higher than the rest to head home from a corner after 10 minutes.

Halifax supporters had nothing but admiration for United’s second. Steve Torpey unleashed a trademark torpedo from distance beating ‘keeper Craig Mawson, before flying into the bottom right corner and being greeted with applause throughout the ground.

William Ahern’s straightforward finish on 20 minutes made it 3-0 before the home side pulled one back through Neil Prince’s cross from the left, although David Chadwick may have got the final unwanted touch.

Mawson concede a penalty with two minutes of the first half remaining and Rory Patterson made no mistake; converting it to make it 4-1 at halftime.

Halifax manager Chris Wilder threw on some more familiar faces after the break in Matt Doughty, Steve Haslam, Adam Quinn, Lewis Killeen and Chris Senior as the Shaymen tried to salvage something.

It wasn’t until the introduction for Danny Forrest after the hour though that the home side got going. Within seconds of coming on, Forrest combined well with Killeen and his shot beat United’s new ‘keeper Sam Ashton to make it 4-2.

But United held on to take a deserved and impressive victory back over the Pennines, leaving their hosts to lament whether it really is ‘Lancashire Day’ 365 days a year.

Match information:

Halifax
31 C Mawson
12. R Toulson
14. J Wright
4. C Clarke
6. L Jones
7. D Beresford
20. N Prince
16. D Boshall
17. W Jacobs
9. Campbell
11. R Sugden
Subs
2. S Haslam
3. M Doughty (14, 54)
5. A Quinn (6, 46)
26. D Forrest (9, 64)
19. L Hunter
15. C Senior (11, 46)
13. J Edge (31, 70)
10. L Killeen (7, 46)

Scorers: Prince 23, Forrest 65


FC United
1. S Ashton
2. M Taylor
3. A Mortimer
4. S Spencer
5. D Chadwick (C)
6. R Nugent
7. J Howard
8. W Ahern
9. S Rudd
10. S Torpey
11. R Patterson
Subs
12. R Giggs (7, 55)
13. B George
14. S Smith
15. L Coyne
16. D Brown (6, 69)
17. D Swarbrick
18. M Lomax
19. S Carden (11, 73)
20. J Mitten

Scorers: Nugent 11, Torpey 17, Ahern 20, Patterson 44 pen