QUESTION: How can three wins suddenly become worth only six points?

When the team that Willington Under-15s beat on the opening day of the season drop out of the League, that's how.

Our 2-0 victory at Parkside has been scrubbed from the record books - leaving us with two wins and a defeat from our other three Premier Division matches.

Given that the Parkside result is now invalid, it was imperative that we triumphed last Sunday - and the boys delivered the goods.

It wasn't the prettiest of matches, but we beat Stadium 1-0 with a first-half goal from Nicholas Elliott.

We stood up to their robust approach and prevailed, although we weren't at our most fluent in possession.

But the most telling comment came from the dad of one of our players, who said: "We would have lost that game last season."

According to the Stadium coach, however, we were fortunate.

"You don't know how lucky you are," he told me after the game.

"Three of our lads had long-term injuries and I was planning to put them on the bench.

"But a car carrying three lads went to Willington, north of Newcastle, rather than the Willington near Crook."

Not a bad excuse, I grant you, but given that we'd hit the woodwork three times before Elliott scored, I thought we were due a bit of luck.

Elliott was later injured and spent Sunday night in hospital with a nasty leg injury, but fortunately the problem is not as severe as first thought.

We have this weekend off as our scheduled opponents, Dunlop, have postponed the game.

It gives a handful of our players who are carrying injuries (including two of our goalkeepers) a rest ahead of a tough run of fixtures.

And while driving to the wrong Willington is impressive, I think I can trump that.

On the way to South Shields from west of Durham three weeks ago, we lost three cars in our convoy.

We finally managed to get a mobile number for one of the people in a lost car. I asked them where they were, only to be told: "Just going past the Metro Centre."

If anyone knows how a trip to South Shields from Willington can involve a shopping trip to House of Fraser, please let me know.

APOLOGIES for this column's absence last week. I believe my reader was very disappointed.

I felt unable to give you the lowdown on the previous week at Willington as I had missed our League Cup game against Whickham on September 28.

I made a number of changes to the team, leaving a handful of important players on the bench or out of the side altogether, and we still won 7-1.

Lewis Hope, currently on trial at Sunderland, scored six. It puts Kevin Kyle's prolific recent run in the shade...

THOSE fortunate enough to be at the Stadium of Light for next Saturday's League game with Walsall had better watch out.

Sunderland have kindly invited my players to the match, so up to 19 of my teenage lads could be running wild around the ground.

After informing one of the Black Cats' press officers that I might arrive late, she said: "I can look after them - would they behave if I mentioned your name?"

Somehow, I reckon doing that might just inflame the situation!