FORMER Sunderland manager Alan Durban was coming to the end of his stint as advisor/coach/manager at Northern League Willington who had won four out of seven league games under the former Cardiff City, Derby County, Shrewsbury and Welsh international.

Durban left on September 29 to take up an appointment as manager of Cardiff City. Elsewhere in the Northern League Evenwood crushed Darlington Reserves 5-0.

It came as a shock, because prior to the fixture the Quakers' Reserves had only conceded 11 goals in 7 games. Doug Wallis 2, Frank Stocker, Steve Weldon and Shaun Somers were the Evenwood scorers.

MIDDLETON St. George CC retained the Darlington and District Division A title after their match at Aldbrough St. John was abandoned. Aldbrough batted first and made 98 with Paul Gregg taking 5 wickets for the champions, who were 49-5 with 13 overs left, when bad light stopped play. When the Lands match was cancelled Nevile Thompson took the opportunity to play for the Second team and score the runs needed to take him to 1,000 runs for the season. In the B Division Lingfield CC bowler Dave Leith clean- bowled four batsmen in four consecutive balls in a ten over spell of 6-8 as Spennymoor were shot out for 43. Lingfield passed the total in 7.2 overs.

COUNDON F.C. entertained Chilton WMC in the Auckland and District League Cup, and the home side took the lead in the 60th minute when Paul Meek played the ball to Paul Buxton who hit a rising shot into the roof of the net. With fifteen minutes remaining the visitors equalised when Stephen Taylor nipped in to score. Chris Chapman won the game for Chilton with a 20 yard shot in extra-time. Wolsingham were too strong for Shildon Sunnydale LC and won 9-1 with Jimmy Gallagher 4, Neil Moore 2, Stephen Tindale 2, and Stephen Crawford their scorers.

WILLIE Bond scored four tries for Bishop Auckland Rugby Club who won their home merit table game with Washington by the huge margin of 76-0. Darlington took the lead at home to Morpeth with a first half penalty from Nick Seddon and a Gary Hewitt try. Just before the interval Green scored a try for Morpeth and then in the second half the same player levelled the score with a penalty before, five minutes from time, kicking a second penalty to leave Morpeth the winners.