North Ferriby United 0

Winsford United 3

UniBond Division One

Monday, April 16

IT'S been something of a landmark week on the field for Winsford United.

On Saturday, their 5-0 home win over Farsley Celtic was their biggest in the league since they beat Knowsley by the same score in 1994.

Then two days later, Danny Worthington became the first Blues player to score a hat-trick for five years, and only the third in the last 10.

The records were close at hand thanks to United's fixture secretary Andy Maylor, who, on Saturday, was wracking his brains trying to think of the last Winsford player to score a treble when Worthington hit his second against Farsley in the 55th minute.

Although the striker didn't complete his hat-tick then, Maylor trawled the archives on Sunday to discover it was Jock Russell who last scored three in a game for Blues, against Barrow in 1996.

It must have been a good omen because on Easter Monday Worthington took his season's tally from 20 to 23, with all three coming in the second half at North Ferriby.

It gave Winsford a dream Easter return of six points out of six, eight goals scored, none conceded.

After a dour opening 45 minutes at Ferriby, Worthington broke the boredom with a stunning individual strike just after the break. He picked up Adrian Riley's pass on the left, beat three players and finished it off with a shot into the top corner from the left edge of the area.

This stung Ferriby into action and they had their best spell of the game, but Andy Burns and Wes Simpson were giants at the back for the second game running.

Simpson would probably have taken the man of the match honours for his solid display, and it was only in the last five minutes that Worthington added to his first goal.

Before this both he and Shaughnessy had put chances over the bar when clean through, but the sending off of Steve Fisher for a professional foul on Mike Scully in the 83rd minute gave United extra impetus.

It was Worthington who took full advantage by sticking out a leg to convert Martin Gwinnett's cross then rounding the goalkeeper to put into an empty net three minutes from time.

Winsford: Pierce, Morley, Riley, Burns, Simpson, Mayes, Pitts, Gwinnett, Worthington, Shaughnessy (Lowe 88), Scully. Not used: Pollitt, Greaves. Man of the Match: Danny Worthington.