Warrington Town 5

Ashton Town 0

IT will probably be a long time before you see a better debut than Damien Whitehead's.

The striker, let loose at first team level after coming through the youth ranks, scored two goals and set the other three up as Warrington went through to the first round of the North West Trains League Challenge Cup on Saturday.

Astonishingly, it was Town's first home cup win for three years and their first home win in any competition since February.

The players celebrated by chucking a bucket of water over manager Dave Hughes - and the unfortuante reporter who was interviewing him at the time!

Hughes said: "Damien has done well. It wasn't just the goals though, his movement off the ball was good and he injected some pace into the team."

The first goal came after only seven minutes. Whitehead pushed the ball through for midfielder James Ward to chase and he delicately lifted the ball over the advancing goalkeeper and into the net from 25 yards.

Dave Berry, very impressive down the right flank, crossed superbly to pick out the unmarked Whitehead for his first goal in the 14th minute and Town were cruising.

In first half injury time Kevin Dack squared a ball for Whitehead to steer home a drive.

Whitehead had a header cleared off the line in the 48th minute as he went in search of his hat-trick.

Then a Whitehead blast, from a Berry cross, was blocked but the ball fell nicely for Ward who stabbed home his second strike in the 62nd minute.

Whitehead set up the last one for Dack when he pulled the ball back from the by-line for a tap in.

Town: Alan Thomson, Neil Johnson, Ian Hughes, Chris Hunt, Steve Cartledge, Paul Berry, James Ward, Andy Tague, Damien Whitehead, Kevin Dack, Ian Bold. Subs used: Kevin Tyrrell, Tony Stockton, Terry Nestor.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.