ATHERTON Colls' team boss Alan Lord was left absolutely seething with rage about some of the "goings on" in his team's magnificent showing for a North Western Trains League Division 1 point in Ellesmere Port. "I was absolutely disgusted by some of the bully boy tactics Vauxhall employed on Saturday," stormed Lord. "If these things don't get sorted out, the over the top tackles and off the ball incidents, I'm honestly thinking of binning it.

"I've had enough of it. I want to go down on record here and now and say that this is something that has got to be looked at. The days of the good referees who could man manage are gone.

"They are concentrating on the wrong things and ignoring others where players could get seriously hurt. We're getting told off in the dug-outs for pointing out these things but out there on the pitch my players are in danger. "Three quarters of the game was full of good football. We were leading from early on and playing superbly. Then it all turned sour.

"I've got Paul Whittle our full back with a nine inch gash down the back of his calf and left back Mark Fitton was elbowed in the face when the ref and linesmen were telling us off.

"We brought Neil Wright on as sub and as he went to take his place he was head butted. He was completely sparked out. He hadn't even touched the ball and we had to carry him off. "Two of their players were responsible for viscious assaults. There was even a referees assessor there but nothing was said.

I'd give every one of my players nine out of ten for this performance. Their equaliser was so late into injury time it must have been five to five when it went in."

Man of the match Chris Arnold had given Colls the lead on 17 minutes. There were highly impressive debuts for Colls from ex-Crewe trainee Paul Richardson who has just signed for the Alder House outfit from Hyde United and Paul Cox making a welcome return to the club after proving his fitness in local football following a long term knee injury. Ramsbottom United secretary John Maher said after his side's 3-1 defeat at Skelmersdale United: "They are a decent side and you can see why they are fourth in the league."

"This was a good contest, full of good football but if you don't take your chances, you don't get anything out of it. We should have known it wasn't going to be our day when one of our subs got injured in the warm up."

Keeper Paul Horridge was at fault for both Skem's opening goals. The first on 18 minutes he allowed to sneak in at his near post and two minutes before half time he looked favourite in a 50-50 challenge but missed out and the home forward poked into an open net. A free kick was driven in on 53 minutes by the Merseysiders and Rams full back Dave Roach dived to head clear only to see the ball nestle nicely in his own net.

Four minutes from time Russell Brierley scored the best goal of the day. The Rams get a swift chance of revenge with a quirk in the fixture schedule seeing Skelmersdale the visitors to the Riverside Ground next weekend. Radcliffe Boro's home game with Eastwood Town, Atherton LR entertaining St Helens Town and Daisy Hill at home to Curzon Ashton were all postponed.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.