The weather on the journey to the away fixture was looking a little 'ropey' to say the least with strong winds and heavy downpours giving for 'one of those games'.

A quick chat from the manager in the changing rooms, who went over the positives and the negatives that the reserves needed to focus on from previous games.(during which, Stephen Scoltock would/should have been fined for (1) Having his mobile phone 'go off' (2) Having such an out dated ring tone!!!)

To the game and the rain clouds had decided to vacate, however, the wind had not and this was surely going to be a factor during the game. The pitch itself was not the mud bath some had expected and was in fact quite the opposite meaning the ball was certain to bounce, the quantity of leaves on the far touchline was going to make judging the line a little difficult, however, none of this was going to matter too much to a confident Diggle team who were eager to get on with the game.

There wasn't much between the two teams during the opening exchanges with neither team taking the game to the other. Just as Diggle began to look the more likely team to score, it was the home side who broke the deadlock, Berry Brows striker (No 10) pulled away from his marker and with the ball played through to him he managed to somehow squeeze the ball past Ben Pollard in goal. Ben doing everything he could to close down the advancing player and smother the ball.

Diggle responded expertly and did not dwell on going 1 down and took the game to the home side with many chances being created.

It wasn't long before Diggle had levelled the game with Glyn Partington opening his account for the season.
Berry Brow were then extremely lucky not to be down to 10 men when after an excellent passage of play saw Glyn Partington burst through the defence, forcing Berry Brows goal keeper to come racing out of his box, as Glyn won the race, he managed to knock the ball past the stranded keeper, who stuck out a leg and brought Glyn down. Needless to say it was pretty clear to everyone that the 'letter of the law' dictates that the keeper had to go, surely! Despite this, the ref only produced a yellow card.

From the free kick that followed, Diggle won a corner and as Martin Mayall went to take it, he managed to get himself booked for wearing a ring, which is fair enough following the 'letter of the law'!!!  (where have we heard that phrase before??)

On a brighter note, another Mayall, namely Bevan was having a much better day. It’s a good job that games aren't recorded as I'm sure Bevan would have everyone back in Diggle watching re-run after re-run of his goal. Bevan, proving that he still has it, managed to dance his way through the Berry Brow midfield with a fancy dip of the shoulder and some quality close control and he then drilled the ball into the top corner of the net from all of 35 yards out!! This leaving everyone on both sides gob smacked while he ran off to the corner flag to celebrate…surely a strong contender for goal of the season!

Diggle continued to pile on the pressure and with lessons learned early on by our defence, Berry Brow had very little time anywhere near the Diggle goal. It was Diggle who were the stronger team as the half time whistle was blown.

The managers half time team talk basically asked for more of the same, to continue doing the right things and the goals will follow. The manager saw no reason to make any changes and with no injuries, Diggle lined up the same to start the second half.

Diggle continued the second half as they finished the first and re-imposed themselves on the opposition. Diggle were eventually forced into replacing Richard Devy who could not shake off a niggle, Paul Wood took his place in midfield.

Diggle’s continued pressure saw them increase their lead through Matthew P Taylor. Soon after it was one of Diggles defenders who got himself on the score sheet, Kelvin McWatt who had played a long ball forward that was to catch the Berry Brow keeper out. The keeper had ventured off his goal line to collect the ball, but the bounce fooled him and all he could do was to get a finger tip onto it as the ball dropped over him and into the open net.

Subsequent changes saw Stephen Scoltock and Danny Tomlinson come on to replace the hard working Glyn Partington and Mark 'John Willy' Lees. Mark had suffered an injury to his ankle during a rare attack from the Berry Brows forwards.

Further goals by Matthew P Taylor, to take his personal afternoons tally to 4, secured the 3 vital points.

Although the home side were well beaten, to their credit, they never stopped trying and got rewarded with a further goal leaving the final score line 7-2.