Bamber Bridge 2 Winsford Utd 3

UniBond Premier Division

THE Blues returned to winning ways after an afternoon of action and incident at Ironbridge on Saturday, writes ANDY MAYLOR.

Five goals, one from Winnie Steele which mirrored his effort at Chester, and the sending off of United's Steve Aspinall kept the spectators involved throughout.

The action started with Winsford taking the lead after only a minute.

Aspinall's cross was palmed out by Bridge keeper Martin Jones and Paul Wheeler raced in to head home.

Seven minutes later, good approach work by United nearly resulted in a spectacular goal for Nathan Peel, but his half-volley narrowly dipped wide.

The home side recovered and equalised on 27 minutes. A Bamber Bridge free-kick was only half-cleared and Dave Leaver punished Winsford by driving home a cleanly-struck shot from the edge of the area.

Two goals in as many minutes, though, regained the initiative for United.

On 33 minutes Aspinall's corner was headed powerfully forward by Peel and the ball cannoned off Bridge defender Lee Sculpher to give keeper Jones no chance.

A minute later Winnie Steele dramatically regained his goalscoring touch with a superb 34th minute strike.

Steele picked up the ball on the half-way line and beat two players before unleashing a 25-yard dipping shot which sailed over Jones for a carbon copy of the strike which stunned Chester in October's FA Cup tie.

The half-time lead looked anything but comfortable as Bamber Bridge caused United plenty of second-half problems.

David Clegg had to clear off the line on 58 minutes after Winsford's young Irish international keeper Glynn Clyde missed the corner and then a minute later Aspinall had to clear off the line again as Bridge pressed.

Another corner caused United problems with 10 minutes remaining. Aspinall handled on the line and was promptly issued the red card.

Stuart Diggle scored the resulting penalty, but Winsford's 10 men held on for the maximum points.

Winsford: Clyde, Clegg (Shaughnessy 58 mins), Hibbert, Talbot, German, Aspinall, Wheeler, Thomas, Bermingham, Peel, Steele. Sub not used: Came.

Man of the match: Gary Talbot.

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