DEAN Martin's first goal of the season late into injury time helped maintain City's 100 per cent away record at Runcorn on Tuesday night.

Martin rounded Runcorn keeper Mark Winstanley to fire home after some unselfish play from Colin Potts.

Lancaster took the lead on the 17th minutes when Brian Welch needed no persuasion to go down in the box after a push from the Linnets' centre half Peter Ellis.

The decision seemed very harsh on Runcorn who were putting a great deal of pressure on the City defence.

Andy Whittaker stepped up to send Winstanley the wrong way and keep his own personal record going of scoring in each of the Blues' away fixtures this season.

City should have been ahead in the fourth minute when Welch was played through by Potts on the left hand side but Winstanley saved well at the expense of a corner.

However, Runcorn had many opportunities to equalise when, on 20 minutes, Paul Haddow had to clear a Liam Watson effort off the line and moments later Watson had a superb long range effort bound for the top corner tipped over superbly by Mark Thornley.

The second half saw City produce the style of football that matched their surroundings in the stylish Autoquest stadium in which Potts and Brian Butler were the orchestrators of some slick city moves, one of which resulted in a thunderous Martin volley saved well by Winstanley.

Runcorn continued to waste food chances with captain Paul McNally heading against the bar from a free kick and Watson again had to be denied on the line, this time by Paul Rigby, with 15 minutes remaining.

Lancaster then recorded their fifth victory of the campaign taking them back to joint top of the Unibond Premier League.

It all got too much for one very strange Runcorn fan who strolled onto the field of play with no top on just after the city opener, but maybe he was making some form of protest against the £7 entrance price.

RESULT: Runcorn 0 Lancaster City 2