The last pre-season friendly saw the Stan take on Prudhoe Town of the Wearside league. Although they offered stronger challenge than the last opposition, the match was a relatively uneventful affair. There were seven changes from Saturday’s starting line-up including one trialist and debuts for Joe Davison and Graham Williams.

For the first 8 minutes, the ball was mainly in the Stan half but even then the home keeper was not called into action until the 11 th minute. The Stan eventually had 3 attacks with a long shot by Bailey going just over in 19 minutes. Buzzeo made a good clearance in the 25 th minute and 3 minutes later the visitors had a good effort cleared. In 30 minutes, Jones hit the side netting. Philipson then made a good tackle to stop a Prudhoe attack who then also had a shot pushed wide by Davison in the Stan goal.

There were only a couple of more attacks by both teams until the Stan came closest to scoring in injury time. Davison blocked a Prudhoe attack and Jones’s counter-attack led to a Stan corner. The ball in from the corner hit was hit off the post by a defender and there also seemed to be a handball.

From the kick off, Prudhoe tried a long shot which went wide. The visitors had 4 attacks until the first effort by the Stan came in 54 minutes when Buzzeo shot over. A Prudhoe free kick in 56 minutes led to Davison getting a hand to a header. Nothing much continued to happen although Prudhoe shot wide in 61 minutes and 5 minutes later Davison caught another effort. There was then an attack at either end before another quiet period.

Thankful of the final whistle, the Stan Army can now look forward to next Saturday’s FA cup clash and the beginning of the long road to Wembley.

Team: Davison; Buzzeo; Philipson; Williamson; Wear (Scott); Bailey (Fulcher); Imray; McCabe (Trialist); Jones; Johnson (Salim); Deagle (Walker).

Subs: Scott, Fulcher, Trialist, Salim, Walker

Attendance: Unknown

Kevin Mochrie