Albany Northern League. Division One

DUE to heavy overnight frost Guisborough's annual Boxing Day home match against local rivals Marske United had to be postponed and will be re-arranged as a mid-week game later in the season.

Dunston Federation Brewery 3 Guisborough Town 1

DECEMBER is fast proving Guisborough's bogie month after they lost their third match of the month in quick succession.

Their latest set back came on Saturday at Dunston Federation when they went down 3-1

Right from the kick off the Federation Park mob stamped their authority on this game and came close to scoring on eight minutes when Shore broke down the left and set up Paul Hogg whose close range shot was just turned round by keeper Mathew Coddington. Then on 15 minutes Hogg hustled his way round a slack defence and slipped a neat ball through to Andy Elliott, but yet again alert keeper Coddington raced to Guisborough's rescue as he nicked the ball away from Elliott's feet as he teed-up his shot.

But it was not all one-way traffic, Guisborough had a few chances in the opening spell, the best fell to Mickey Driscoll on 16 minutes after he and Darren Roulston combined to carve an opening through the middle only to stumble at the final hurdle.

The breakthrough came on 29 minutes when hard working forward Gary Forbes sliced his way through the midfield and crossed an inch perfect pass to unmarked Paul Hogg to deftly side-foot home.

Guisborough fought hard to get the equaliser and came close on 36 minutes when Steve Corden slipped his marker and fired in a shot that had Fed keeper Andy Hutchinson at full stretch to save.

With three minutes of the half remaining Dunston went two up when Hogg and Fletcher's quickfire passes allowed Elliott to slip round his marker and tap the ball into the net.

The second half started at a frantic pace with Guisborough keeping Dunston pinned down in their own area. First Mowbray had keeper Hutchinson scrambling to save then minutes later Haslam forced the hard pressed keeper to make a finger tip save.

Dunston wrapped this game up in the 74th minute when Elliot slipped the ball to Hogg, who weaved his way round Coddington, squared the ball for Andrew Fletcher to fire in from close range.

Even though they were three goals down the Priorymen continued to press forward in numbers and were rewarded in the 82nd minute when player boss Mark Forster nipped in to score a well deserved consolation goal for all their efforts.

Overall. Guisborough had chances to get something out of this match, but seem to have lost their goal scoring skills. This result drops them out of the top six, but pushes Dunston up into the top five and with a handful of games in hand makes them one of the favourites for the top spot honours. Guisborough will be looking to bounce back tomorrow at home to mid table Tow Law