UniBond League

DURHAM City manager Lee Collings admitted he hit a career low when his young side lost 11-0 at King’s Lynn in the UniBond League Premier Division on Saturday.

Collings has had to field mainly teenagers and, despite an overnight stay in a hotel, they were five down after 25 minutes, and it was 7-0 at halftime.

“Midway through the second half when the score was 9-0, my assistant, Dickie Ord, asked me if the game was the low point of my career, and I told him it was. But I’m not going to walk away from the club,” said Collings.

“No blame can be attached to the players, but it was literally men against boys. Kings Lynn had two players on loan from Peterborough up front, our defenders are still at college.

Their front four tore us to shreds.

“Some of the players froze, because they’d never played in front of a crowd of over 1,000. Two more had to come off injured at half-time.

“At least one positive came out of it. Even in the last 15 minutes the kids were getting the ball down and trying to pass it. They never gave up, and the fans gave them a standing ovation.

One of them shouted “Don’t kick that Durham lad, he has to go to school on Monday.” It said it all, really.

“The club needs to have a rethink now about whether to stick with so many youngsters, especially for away games. We were missing four or five because they had to work on Saturday morning.”

City have conceded 25 goals in their last three league games, and are close to conceding 100 goals already.

Whitby drew 2-2 draw at Burscough. They led 2-1 with goals by Jimmy Beadle and new signing Andy Campbell, but Burscough levelled with a few minutes remaining.

In the Blue Square North, Blyth drew 1-1 at Solihull, Paul Brayson scoring their goal.