This was an important match for the Stan after two opening league defeats against a Thornaby team that had already taken four points in their first two games. Assistant manager Geoff Walker flew in direct from Turkey for this match and let’s hopes he can keep his ‘lucky tan’ for a while. It meant that the squad could benefit from the combined leadership and wisdom of both the Stan’s Batman and Robin. The dynamic duo decided to make five changes from the starting line up that was thrashed at Team North. This included a league debut for sixteen year old keeper Daniel Rule.

The match got off to a great start when Lewis Burns headed in a free kick in the third minute for the Stan’s first league goal of the season. Things did not go all the Stan’s way immediately after they took the lead as Thornaby tried to test the new keeper on a number of occasions and Andrew Roberston, who had been doubtful during training, had to go off injured and was replaced by Gary Yates.

Lee Johnson was unlucky with a free kick and there were further chances at either end with the Stan’s confidence still seeming relatively low. This began to change from the twenty fourth minute when some duff goalkeeping by Thornaby’s Michael Duff allowed Paul Blakey to go round him to make it 2-0.

Heaton Stannington dominated the rest of the first half which also witnessed some hard but mainly fair tackling. The Stan’s continued pressure paid off in the forty fourth minute when Duff brought Burns down inside the box. Lee Johnson calmly slotted the ball into the back of the net to make it 3-0 at half time.

In the second half, Thornaby failed to take advantage of the wind and did not really threaten Rule in the Stan goal, who should be proud of his debut performance. The half saw almost continuous attacking by the home side with the failure to add to their tally partly due to both good goal keeping by Duff and to the strong winds.

There were both team and individual efforts by the Stan including some good attempts by Blakey and Yates. There was a busy final minute when Blythway scored direct from a free kick to earn Thornaby a consolation goal. This was followed almost immediately by the Stan’s fourth goal. Blakey turned a couple of defenders to set up Yates whose goal made the final score 4-1. Hopefully normal service is now resumed.

Manager Derek Thompson was pleased with the performance and outcome. At his post match conference he stated: ‘It was the spark we needed to start our season.’

Stan Team: Rule; Stoddart; Deagle; Dixon, I; Pearson; Wear; Blakey; Johnson, L; Stevens (Chambers); Robertson (Yates); Burns (Hoggins).

Unused subs: Dixon, G; Telford.

Goals: Burns 3, Blakey 24, Lee Johnson 44, Yates 90.

Yellow Cards: Lee Johnson, Stevens, Burns.

Attendance: 71

Kevin Mochrie