SOCCER: This was an action replay of last week's game with six goals shared and a late Nelson equaliser. For the first 30 minutes Nelson were on top in a hard-fought, often physical game and several chances were wasted by the Blues.

But Rossendale United scored three goals in 15 minutes to put a stranglehold on the game.

On 31 minutes, a Nelson defender fired a clearance against a team-mate's legs to leave Jim McCluskey with a simple chance.

Five minutes later, rampant Rossendale made it 2-0 with a terrific strike from 25 yards by Clegg. Nelson got a goal back when Whiteside headed down for Connelly to knock home, but within two minutes it was 3-1 when a Nelson player misdirected a headed clearance and Burke fired home. Craig Stansfield showed a flash of magic by beating two men before unleashing an unstoppable right-footer from 20 yards to reduce the arrears after 57 minutes.

Nick Roscoe and Greg Boyes hit the bar before Nelson equalised in the eighth minute of added time with a freak goal when the keeper threw a tame Stansfield shot into his own goal after appearing to catch it safely.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.