Whickham 4-1 Heaton Stannington
Whickham produced a phenomenal performance on Friday night to beat an in-form Heaton Stannington side 4-1 at The Glebe.
The visitors took the lead early in the first half through Jordan Lashley and Whickham equalised on the stroke of half time through Kyle Patton.
A second half hat trick from Nathan Greenwood gave Whickham three points in what was a dominant performance.
The win sees The Lang Jacks climb to seventh in the EBAC Northern League and just three points off
Heaton themselves.
Whickham started the game with an intensity and had the ball in the net within two minutes after Garon Garside crossed in and Kyle Patton finished clinically, but the flag went up for offside.
The Stan took the lead after 10 minutes, arguably against the run of play, as a mix up in the Whickham defense allowed Jordan Lashley to slot the ball into an empty net from 25 yards.
The lead could’ve been doubled 15 minutes later as Daniel Stephenson was one-on-one but Nathan Harker made a big stop to prevent him.
Close to the break goalkeeper Thomas Flynn was called into action from two consecutive corners as a Jamie Dunn header and a deflection forced him into two terrific saves.
But then Whickham found their equaliser on the stroke of half time as Jamie Dunn nodded the ball in behind to Kyle Patton who finished over a stumbling goalkeeper.
After the break Jack Robson continued to torment Heaton and almost put us ahead as he received the ball in the box, spun his man with ease but his shot was in the reach of Flynn who saved down to his left.
Soon after Nathan Greenwood began to find his rhythm as he tried to curl a shot from the edge of the box into the top corner but it went just wide of the goal.
Greenwood started his scoring spree just after the hour mark as he drove towards the Heaton box and cut inside, past two players and fired hard and low into the bottom right corner.
The brace arrived 10 minutes later as the ball fell loose from an aerial duel in the box and he once again found the same corner, this time with his left foot.
And then in the depth of extra time, the hat trick came for Greenwood as he counter attacked with pace from the halfway line and beat Josh Walker with ease before firing into the corner.
Whickham XI: Harker, Howard, Agnew, Burrell ©, Garside, H. Smith (Yoxall 61), J. Robson (B. Smith 94), Young, Patton (Dibb-Fuller 79), Dunn, Greenwood.
Unused subs: Below, Page
Man of the Match: Nathan Greenwood
Referee: Joel Tilmouth