Back to winning ways on the road for Lancaster City

Lancaster City picked up a first away win since November at Prescot Cables in the Northern Premier League.

The Dollies got off to a spectacular start with Simon Grand finding the back of the net on his 801st appearance. Despite the action dwindling after the goal, the second half began in an eerily similar way as Nic Evangelinos returned to the scoresheet.

Then to cap off a perfect afternoon, Bobby Bjork and Stephen Yawson added to the lead, whilst goalkeeper Brad Kelly kept a clean sheet.

City were in dreamland almost immediately as they looked past last weekend’s defeat, and got off to a flying start. In the first minute, a looping header courtesy of Grand seemingly caught the Prescot keeper out as the ball glided over him and into the net for the opener.

Following the Dollies taking the lead, the action began to curtail with few chances coming at either end. The home side were asking questions of City, however, the chances for their number 10 Tony Donaldson weren’t enough to threaten Kelly.

As the half continued, Lancaster began to cause more problems and threaten for a second. The most notable opportunity came through a three versus counter attack, though the chance was squandered after a decisive pass was cut out.

After an interval for a fairly even half, City got proceedings back underway with another piece of magic. The ball was immediately pumped forward which wasn’t dealt with by the home side’s backline, who were clearly struggling with vision due to the glaring sun. Evangelinos pounced on the ball and delivered a shot, which trickled past Connor Edwards to double the lead after just 10 seconds.

With the healthy lead, Jimmy Marshall’s side were seemingly in their element and were playing with a new-found freedom. By the 63rd minute, Bjork made it three via a delicious corner into the box. City’s makeshift full-back had been asking questions with his deliveries all afternoon and after putting the ball perfectly onto the keeper, the home side couldn’t prevent it from going in.

Just two minutes later, Stephen Yawson capped off the display with a fourth. The forward worked tirelessly up top, and eventually found his reward as he came off the left and beat the keeper at his near post. Delight for the Dolly Blues number eleven, who made way just a minute later for Dom Lawson.With Lancaster in the driving seat more changes came. Lewis Mansell was one of the notable additions as he was plugging away to make it a five star display. The attacker’s best chance came when he slid a delightful ball through to Lawson, but the defender’s intervention proved decisive in clearing it away. The subsequent corner was even more dangerous though as Grand’s powerful header came just shy of the goal.

Following the conclusion of the second half onslaught, City climbed up to seventh in the league with their sixth away win of the campaign.

The wait for the Dolly Blues to return to action isn’t long with County Cup action on Tuesday as the club hosts Clitheroe in a highly anticipated semi-final.