Saturday`s North Conference sees two narrow victories; Sunday bring another Ellon win

There were only two games in Saturday`s North Conference and both were narrow victories – in the men’s competition Granite City Wanderers retained their unbeaten record with the odd goal in seven while their women`s side caught the eye with an impressive 2-1 win over Gordonians for their first win of the season.

Granite City made a rock solid start with an open play strike by Meldrum MacKenzie. But within two minutes John Dargie had levelled for Aberdeen GS. That is how the score stood until just before the interval, Dargie put Aberdeen GS 2-1 ahead with a close range rebound following a snap shot from James Williams.

A big result looked on the cards when Dargie extended the lead to 3-1 with another open play strike, bagging his hat-trick. GS then lost a bit of their shape and Mark Cooper pulled one back at a penalty corner, followed by MacKenzie from the spot to tie the score at 3-3.

The winner came in the closing ten minutes with Stuart Begg doing the honours for Granite City.

In a post-match assessment, GS`s James Williams stated: “We are getting stronger every week, still have quite a few of our regulars missing so the kids are playing well.” Then, in jest, he remarked: “I think we were the top game in Europe today.”

In the women`s North Conference Gordonians surrendered the chance to pulling level with Ellon at the top after going down 2-1 to Granite City Wanderers for their first victory of the competition. The Premiership side are still three points adrift of Ellon but with a game in hand.

Gordonians went ahead through Lyndsey Davidson in the second quarter. However, the turning point came with a second half injury to their keeper and they elected to play the rest of the game with eleven outfield players. The tactic failed and Granite City scored twice through Amy Ferguson and Jen Smith for the three points.

Rebecca Murray for Gordonians remarked at the end of the game: “From our side we were fairly pleased as we had lots of new and young players. It was a decent game overall, with chances at both ends.”

On Sunday Nikki Kidd, veteran of 170 Scotland caps and 64 goals who retired at the top in 2015, scored twice in Ellon`s 5-1 victory over Aberdeen University in their women’s North Conference league encounter. The result extends Ellon`s lead at the top to six points from Gordonians, although with two games more played, and the sides meet head to head next weekend.

Ellon`s other goals came from Gracie Gray-Giles, Jenni Urquhart and captain Louise Gordon, herself a former Scotland international player, while the students` consolation was scored by Innes Wilson at a well-executed penalty corner.

After the match Gordon said: “It was a physical match, several of my players have left bruised and injured, but Uni didn`t make much progress in getting many shots on target.

“We passed the ball well and built up the play to score five goals.”

This weekend’s other game – men`s Gordonians v Ellon was off.

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