Our women’s team are now unbeaten in eight league matches after winning 3-1 at Durham United today – with Sophie Curle scoring a hat trick.

It wasn’t their best performance of the season because of their three week lay off, but nevertheless they maintain their title challenge, and it means that they end the year unbeaten in the league – a great achievement.

Manager Shaun MacKenzie said; “We were a bit lacklustre today, probably because of the three weeks off.

“We only had eleven players available as well because of illness and Christmas commitments, so that restricted us in terms of substitutions.

“But we still kept the ball well at times, and put some good passing moves together.

“Sophie scored a great hat trick again, her second goal was a screamer.

“It was a good all round performance, and puts us in the right frame of mind for our FA cup tie next week.”

Sophie has now scored 18 goals in the league this season

Here’s the match report by Chris Barrett

In what was expected to be a fairly simple task of playing a 10 player Durham United side Darlington struggled to impose themselves in what was a disappointing performance.

Darlington started well and were ahead after 5 minutes when Chloe Bright got the ball to Sophie Curle on the right hand side who drove past the defence and shot across the goal past the keeper, into the bottom left hand corner and Darlington had a 1-0 lead.

Durham regrouped and got through on goal after 8 minutes and it took an important recovery run from Alice Wearmouth to steal the ball away from the Durham attacker. The second goal for Darlington came under controversial circumstances after 18 minutes, when a Durham player appeared to go down with a head injury, but after a quick assessment from the referee the game carried on and the ball found its way to Curle outside the box who struck from distance and put the ball in the top right hand corner to double the lead.

The play stagnated and Darlington battled through to half time with the lead but it was more of the same after the break with simple errors and poor passing starving the game of flow and creativity.

The first chance of the second half was a free kick to Durham which was pushed onto the bar by Martina Cuccunato and away to safety.

Durham were repeatedly trying to break the offside trap and eventually after 78 minutes got their reward when the ball was played down the right and the Durham striker struck the ball over the advancing Cuccunato to bring the score back to 2-1.

The game became increasingly tense with individual errors still happening and it took until the 89th minute when Emma Carter played the ball from the left hand side to Curle on the edge of the box who set herself and fired past the outstretched keeper to seal the win and 3 points for Darlington.

The lack of games recently and low number of players due to illness did not help the cause but Darlington can take solace knowing they still battled through to take the three points on one of their worst days. Credit must go to Durham for their battling display with a player less.

Here's the league table.

https://fulltime.thefa.com/table.html?league=901345664&selectedSeason=85293540&selectedDivision=371387182&selectedCompetition=0&selectedFixtureGroupKey=1_97264698

We’d like to thank the following kit sponsors:

Hattie Raine (sponsored by Krystal Sells), Emma Carter (The Cheese and Wine Shop), Emma Doudican (Winroths Hairdressers), Sarah Frew (Chic Beauty Academy), Martina Cuccunato (Premier 1 Filtration), Caisey Lee (Engage to Learn), Olivia Whitworth (Terry Farley MBE), Sophie Curle (Franks Carpets), Natalie Peart (RA Dalton Ltd), Toni Upton (Dawn Fire Safety), Alice Wearmouth (Direct Flooring), Chloe Bright (Jordan Hanratty Personal Training),  Chloe Tinkler (Glen and Mary Bowes), Millie Garnett (eco Hair Salon), Aimee Dagnall (Andrew Scullion), Gabrielle Padurianu (John Vickerman).