[caption id="attachment_29826" align="alignnone" width="199"] Greg Taylor[/caption]

Stockport County 3 Darlington 4

A spectacular winner from Greg Taylor completed a remarkable transformation for Darlington with a 4-3 win at Edgeley Park.

Quakers manager Mark Cooper, who received the dreaded vote of confidence from his chairman before the game made six changes to the team that lost badly at Bath last Saturday, and gave a debut to new centre half Exodus Geoghaghon, signed just before the match from Barnet.

Quakers took the lead after only 61 seconds, when Greg Taylor fed the ball through for Liam Hatch to burst clear and hit a diagonal right foot shot that Matt Glennon could only parry, and stand in skipper Jamie Chandler, following up, tapped the ball into the net for his first goal of the season.

But Quakers were in the lead for less than a minute, when Joe Edwards crossed from the right for Nick Chadwick to beat Ole Soderberg with a neat header into the bottom corner of the net from ten yards.

The game remained very open, and Southport took a 2-1 lead after 12 minutes when Michael Paton got around the back of the Darlington defence on the end of a Jon Nolan pass, and he managed to force the ball home at the second attempt, despite there being two Darlington defenders on the line.

Liam Hatch and Chris Atkinson both went close from long range, before Quakers levelled on 32 minutes, when Adam Rundle created space cleverly for himself on the right and crossed perfectly left footed beyond the reach of Stockport keeper Matt Glennon to the far post, where Jamie Walshaw scrambled the ball home.

However, Didi Hamann’s side went 3-2 up on 51 minutes, when Paton found space 30 yards out, and hit a right foot shot that took a wicked deflection off Greg Taylor and sent Soderberg the wrong way.

But Quakers responded with another equaliser on 62 minutes, when Rundle crossed deep from the left for Hatch to head towards goal. Glennon could only weakly paw the ball to the feet of Chandler, who bundled the ball home.

The game was poised to go either way, and it went in favour of Quakers with a memorable goal by Greg Taylor on 85 minutes. A Chris Atkinson corner was half cleared to the lurking Taylor 30 yards out, who hit a blistering right foot shot into the top corner – a goal which Hamann would have been proud of in his playing days.