Westmorland completed a double over Cumberland at Under-18’s level when they won 3-0 at Southend Road, Penrith.

That was in the Association of Northern Counties Youth competition while the earlier success had been in the FA County Youth Cup.
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As early as the third minute the referee stamped his authority on the game when he cautioned the home side’s Michael Lewis for kicking the ball away.

The home side had the best of the early exchanges of the game but the first chance fell to the visitors on 18 minutes when Max Shaw found himself unmarked in the penalty area only to stub his shot easily at the Cumberland goalkeeper, Matthew Charters.

On 28 minutes Westmorland’s Nathan McNeil saw his thunderous shot from 30 metres beat the goalkeeper but just went wide of the right hand post.

McNeil was again in the action on 39 minutes when his deflected shot opened the scoring after an outstanding through ball found Dan Davidson on the right and his cross was rucjked away by McNeil.

A couple of minutes later Davidson himself missed an opportunity to increase the lead, but shot wide.

One of Cumberland’s few chances of the game was disallowed early in the second half when Dean Wainwright was clearly offside.

Davidson was unlucky not to increase the visitors’ lead on 55 minutes when he just failed to get there after Charters fumbled the ball.

Shaw got his second goal on 54 minutes when he tapped home Davidson’s cross from the right.

Westmorland’s Thomas Wright was cautioned for a late tackle on 61 minutes.

Davidson got on the scoresheet himself on 62 minutes when his shot was well saved but he quickly followed up to score from the rebound.

As the home teams tempers frayed Michael Grayson was cautioned on 71 minutes for an bad tackle from behind on McNeil and the game got very physical for a while.

The visitors could easily have scored three more goals in the closing stages of the game when substitute Dean Raw’s shot was well saved by Charters. Three minutes later substitute Greg Pearce’s shot was also well saved after beating two men on the edge of the penalty area.

Pearce beat the offside trap a minute later, passed to Graham Baker whose shot was again well saved.

Westmorland dominated the whole of the second half and but for an outstanding performance by Charters the score line could have been much more convincing.

Cumberland FA : Matthew Charters, Dion Barnes, Michael Grayson, Liam Jackson (captain), Ray Sempill, Callum Lee, Michael Lewis, Aaron Roberts, Dean Wainwright, Scott McCrae and Chris Graves
Subs: Stephen Scott, Karl Hartley, Danny Black and Dave Pearson

Westmorland County FA : Stuart Dixon, Thomas Wright, Sam Cooper, Graham Baker (captain), Rob MacKenzie, Drew Lowe, Dan Davidson, Nathan McNeil, Max Shaw, Nathan Dixon and James Benjamin
Subs: Dean Raw, Greg Pearce and Laurence Stannard

Referee: Allan Bennett

Assistant Referees: Nigel D’Arcy and Graeme Jones

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