Clitheroe 4 Bootle 0
Crowd 547

Clitheroe repeated the scoreline from the corresponding fixture at the start of the season with a scintillating display of football that had the crowd purring.

The starting eleven was the same as the one which started the game on Saturday, but this time there was no lack of cutting edge. As early as the seventh minute, the tone was set when Sefton Gonzales advanced down the right before laying the ball to Danny Wilkins, whose instant scooped cross was gratefully headed in by skipper Ross Dent.
The scoreline was doubled three minutes later when Gonzales sprang the offside trap, and as the keeper advanced towards him, he feinted to shoot before calmy slotting beneath the keeper. On 18 minutes, Dent almost got his second goal as his header from a floated Richie Baker cross went agonisingly wide from close range.

Bootle then had their only two chances of the game which ended with a wild shot and with a header narrowly over the bar from a deep cross. Minutes later, the scoreline increased when Reece Webb-Foster drove in a cross inducing a spectacular diving header from the Bootle centre back as he slammed the header home. Chances then came from corners, with Billy Priestley looking hungry for goals, and from Webb-Foster who shot narrowly wide before just failing to turn in an Abs Obasoto cross. Obasoto was not out of the action for long though as his neat cross was met by Gonzales with a fine stooping header to make it 4-0 at half time.

The second half could not hope to compete with the first, but with Clitheroe still clearly in the ascendancy. It took Bootle until the 87th minute to register their first shot on goal for the half, before Obasoto almost made it five after a pinpoint ball was threaded through by Wilkins, but the young winger’s shot was well saved by the visiting keeper.

Team: Chris Thompson, Jacob Hanson, Darren Holden, Richard Baker (Max Cane), Lee Pugh, Billy Priestley (Cameron Lancaster), Reece Webb-Foster (Owen Devonport), Ross Dent (c), Sefton Gonzales, Danny Wilkins, Abimbola Obasoto. Subs - Max Cane, Owen Devonport, Cameron Lancaster. Not used - Jack Burrows, Charlie Russell.