EMC: Radcliffe Olympic 4 West Bridgford 2

A game both sets of players will have been looking forward to, saw Radcliffe Olympic entertain West Bridgford FC at Wharf Lane.

Radcliffe were looking to make amends for their 4-3 defeat against Borrowash Victoria. Missing from the side was Martin Holt, the injured Callum Barratt and serving his last game from a six game suspension Scott Litchfield.

Within three minutes of the start, Radcliffe were high pressing and taking the game to the opposition at high tempo and opened the scoring when Liam Smallwood rose the highest out of four players to nod home bottom corner. Again Radcliffe were determined not to let their local rivals get any rythym whatsoever and on 18mins Paul Durham with a rocket of a shot from 30 yards left footed straight into the bottom corner sent Radcliffe 2-0 up. This making it 2 in 2 for Durham.

West Bridgford themselves then started to play some neat football but it was Ryan Perkins' goal that sent Olympic 3-0 up.

On the stroke of halftime a Ryan Bowen header gave Bridgford a lifeline and gave the visitors some confidence.

HT: 3-1

Second half Radcliffe started slow as Bridgford made a few changes and took the game to Olympic. Smallwood and Spencer held a perfect line with Adams and Yeomans either side and kept out any sort of danger thrown at them until the 70th minute when Aaron Large scored to make it an interesting last 20mins but on 81 mins Ryan Smith put the game to bed beating Martin Kearney to end the game 4-2.

FT: 4-2

Russ Cousins said: "From a neutral point of view it was a great game to watch, a typical local derby. As a management team we were thrilled the way the lads performed against a side that have been promoted and took that confidence into the new season and were unbeaten before tonight. We now go into Saturday's game against Ellistown and will be looking to put in another performance and more importantly getting the three points to push us on."