Lancaster City 1 Spennymoor Utd 0 CITY rediscovered the defensive strength on which last season's promotion was based to beat Spennymoor on Saturday, despite playing almost half the match with 10 men.

Lancaster defender Robbie Armstrong was sent off 35 minutes from the end of the match for pulling at Spennymoor attacker Lee Innes in the middle of the field.

There seemed to be little in the incident and no threat to Mark Thornley's goal but that didn't stop the referee sending him off and causing uproar among Lancaster's players, management and supporters. But even with a man over, the North Easterners couldn't get equalise Mark Shirley's 13th minute goal - a rare header at the far post from the tricky winger following Anthony Key's cross.

The 10 men were rarely troubled by Spennymoor and they could even had extended their winning margin had Barrie Stimpson's late free-kick not slammed against the post and rebounded to safety.

TEAM: Thornley, Macauley, Armstrong, Gelling, Hartley, Stimpson, Trainor, Key, Diggle (Borrowdale), Coleman (Flannery), Shirley. SUB: Tomlinson.

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