By Brian Bennett

Ashington FC’s Craig Spooner played down what was an exceptional goal by the midfielder on Saturday – instead stressing the importance of the result.

The Colliers won their first game at home this term with a 3-1 verdict over Dunston UTS – the side that had knocked them off the Isuzu FA Trophy trail the previous week.

Shortly after half time and with the scores locked at 1-1, Spooner stepped up to curl in a stunning free kick from 20 yards: “To be honest, I thought it was a bit too close to the goal for my range,” said the 24 year old, “I just tried to get the ball over the wall and hit the target – and luckily I did that as the ‘keeper (Dan Staples) stood still. However whilst I was happy to get on the score sheet the most important thing was that we got the three points and hopefully we can now kick on and win more games.”

The Colliers were reduced to nine men after Simon Jakab and skipper Nathan Buddle were both dismissed with 25 minutes remaining plus the ten (minutes) which were added on and Spooner admitted that the effort put in on the park was tremendous: “We played out with nine players on Tuesday night at Newton Aycliffe,” he said, “but the difference was that we were losing 2-0 – whereas today we were 3-1 ahead. I thought we showed character by blocking shots and still doing the right things and making sure that we didn’t concede. We kept things tight and just made sure we came away with the three points.”