Bishop Auckland v Boldon C.A.

Recap

Bishops secured a straightforward passage through to the Durham Challenge Cup second round courtesy of a Dean Thexton treble of close-range finishes and a bizarre Dane Burlace goal.

The second division side was quickly put to task and Thexton tapped in his first of the night from a right-hand side cross inside the opening ten minutes.

The impressive dos Santos levelled the scores against the run of play when he stretched to steer a low shot across debutant Adam Lincoln in the home goal.  Lincoln then produced a good reaction save to tip over a rasping shot as Boldon looked to turn the game on its head.

Bishops’ however, went into the break with a lead when Bartliff surged into space and knocked the ball over the on-rushing keeper for Thexton to complete his second simple finish into an empty net.

Thexton added to his number of hat tricks in his hometown colours in the early stages of the second half when he found himself again in space just in front of the goal line to dispatch another pinpoint low cross.

Then came the game’s main talking point just inside the hour mark, when Burlace raced through to score after everyone else stopped after seeing the linesman raise his flag for offside.  The goal was awarded as presumably the referee decided that Thexton’s initial run was not deemed an actual attempt to play the ball.

With the game secured Bishops were able to bring on Giles for some useful minutes after missing several weeks through injury.

Match report by Gavin Hadden